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Amin's Standard has a little extra kick to it now. The next time we tangle with a heavy hitter of a sorceror, we can unleash sheer hell on him. As in the old days, we have a magic spear that kills sorcerors again.
Sapper has a unique view into the minds of sorcerors. He assures me that a life of servitude to his enemies would be torture for Sauron. A torture that will last pretty much forever.
And over time, Sauron's soul will degrade and dissolve and transmute into nothing but pitiful malice and unendurable pain, lending its power to our cause.
Hoo-ah.
I do believe we'll be sticking around the Sea of Nurnen for a while. Maybe raise up another generation of recruits and build ourselves up from the degraded state we found ourselves in after Pelennor. I don't think I'll still be around to see us march out of here, but Amin likely will. By the time we leave the Free State of Mordor to its own devices, we'll be strong again- free to go north to the wild lands around Forodwaith and Mirkwood, or east out to Rhun. Any place that still needs swords for hire, we'll prosper in. And it doesn't really matter to me where we end up going, now does it?
All that matters to me is, the Company will march again.
I wrote this story because I am going off to boot camp soon, and I wanted to process the concept of being a soldier and work through the nervousness and excitement that comes of watching your shipping off day come closer and closer.
However, I wrote this story because I love the Black Company and I love the Lord of the Rings and wanted to see what would happen if you flung them against each other at high speeds, Hadron Supercollider style.
The Black Company was a story about the lowly soldiers of a stereotypical high-fantasy Dark Lord, and how they viewed themselves and their situation. The Lord of the Rings was the story that pretty much invented the concept of a high-fantasy Dark Lord.
This cross-over was practically begging to be written.
I sat down and pumped out the first chapter in about an hour or so. It seemed so natural and inevitable that I knocked out chapter two almost before I knew it. Things sorta snowballed from there.
I do not expect that the behind-the-scenes details will interest everybody else as much as they interest me. I wrote this chapter not for your benefit, but mine. It is intensely frustrating to know the origin of a character's name, or the source of a certain reference, or the backstory to a minor character, and not be able to tell it in the story. This chapter is primarily designed so that I can get stuff off my chest and out of my mind. If you all enjoy it, then that is a bonus that I'll just have to live with.
Haroun: His name comes from one of the three protagonists of one of Glen Cook's other fantasy series, the Dread Empire, which is occasionally referenced later on. The original character was Haroun bin Yousif, a loyalist guerrilla who harries the theocratic dictatorship that killed his family and took his throne. The plan was to make Haroun bin Yousif a alternate version who happened to have joined the Company. However, I quickly discovered that my Haroun is one sarcastic, irreverent punk, while the other Haroun was pretty humorless. I ditched the previous characterization but kept the name.
Haroun's voice and tone comes from my experience with the theater department at my local community college. Most people involved in it are very flippant about everything, and I do mean everything, and yet are dedicated to doing a good job and helping each other out. They can go from making fun of how melodramatic one of their roles is- mocking the dramatic monologues and exaggerating the angst, and so on- to playing it dead serious in nothing flat.
It's a mix of an earnest desire to perform well and a need to show there is nothing at all earnest about it that characterize both Haroun and my friends.
There was more stuff to his background- I envisioned him as a street rat in his younger years, for instance- but he was just too flip and cheerful to have him angst too much about anything, so I never found an opportunity to find out more of where he came from.
Sapper: When I first had to think of a wizard character to stand in for One-Eye and Goblin, I couldn't think of anything special. So in the tradition of nicknames in the Company, his name was also his job description. A sapper is the guy on the battle field who's responsible for constructing just about everything, and for undermining the enemy constructions- the modern title is Combat Engineer. So Sapper was the guy you go to when you need to break into the other guys' fortress. He gained most of his personality from Haroun's comment about him whipping up a throne of skulls.
The previous Annalist, Wallace: At the time that I wrote that small little paragraph describing Wallace's death, I hadn't decided to make the Company Middle-Eastern flavored. The previous Annalist has a rather Celtic name for a brown guy from south of Harad. I completely forgot about him until later, and when I reread this chapter, I smacked myself upside the head. During the Pelennor Fields, I made Papa Jack mention the Keltoi cavalry solely in order to justify it. Keltoi is the Greek name for the Celtic tribes, which might explain where this random Scottish name came from. I doubt it bothered anyone but me, but I'm glad to finally get it off my chest.
The Sapper Protection Detail: When I started this story, I never intended to kill any of them. Sorry, Blink, Reader and Haroun! Also, I couldn't think of either a name nor a character trait for Saintly at first, so I decided to make his "quirk" hatred of religion. This was long before I knew his backstory. His nickname, like Reader, was supposed to be wholly ironic. I'm still not sure why he called the priest a lying catamite.
And at the end of that section, I got to reference the hell out of Cook's other series. Soulcatcher and the Limper are from the Black Company universe, of course, but Varthlokkur and the Thing are both Dread Empire. Nakar the Abomination is from a stand-alone story of his, The Tower of Fear, which is also set in a alternate Middle-East world. Apparently the Company gets around a lot.
Haroun pondering various translations: Tolkien was a linguist before he was a storyteller. Having a character happily speculate on place names is my way of acknowledging his influence in this story as well. Having a character keep on screwing up the translations is my idea of having fun.
The Battle Scene: At the time I had written about half the fight scene, I had intended this story to start at the beginning of the Battle of Pelennor Fields and end with their defeat. But then I reread The Return of the King and discovered that at the time of the battle, Mordor had already captured the eastern half of Osgiliath. I hadn't wanted to go back and rewrite it all for accuracy's sake, so I changed the timing and had them lead the charge that conquered it in the first place. Which means, for those who don't exactly study Tolkien lore with dedication or fervor, the good guys who retake the western half are led by Boromir and Faramir, just before Boromir rode north to attend Elrond's council.
Killing time in Minas Morgul: And because I moved the timeline back a bit, I then had pretty much nothing to write about. The armies of Mordor do nothing at all from the time they take Osgiliath and when they move on Minas Tirith. Truly, this story would have been much different had I not been too lazy to make the correction in the previous chapter. Well, I'd heard that warfare is 90% boredom and 10% terror, so let's see how bored troops in Mordor spend their time.
Paygrade of an officer, authority of a corporal: I had recently discovered the difference between rank and grade in the military, and I wished to share it.
Bullet sweating Haroun, and going deaf with exhaustion: After a particularly grueling session of Physical Training (PT) down at the station, I was literally incapable of seeing something in front of my face, and having difficulty hearing anything but roaring in my ears. So I went back and rewrote this section to describe my condition. Since Haroun, Spike and Bop are infinitely more badass than I, it takes a whole day of getting their asses kicked by Bullet to put them in that condition, while it only took two hours of mild PT to knock me out.
Personal sex fantasies: It always struck me as weird that Croaker would put his poetry about the Lady in the Annals for all posterity to read. This is my take on how it could make sense. Also, at this point, I had no plans to introduce Zim, so I suppose you could conclude that this is accidental foreshadowing.
Tonk: It's a fun game. I've played it in real life, though not for actual money, unfortunately. I was proud that I could remember the rules without looking it up. Also, Aya Bastard was supposed to survive till the end; more on that in a later chapter.
"Ay! ya bastard!" is actually what I say when I lose a hand of cards. Depending on the company I'm in, of course.
The Nine get trashed: Have you ever wondered just how all the grunts in Sauron's army reacted upon seeing the fearsome dark magic psychos come home utterly defeated? It would surely unnerve them, right? Like if you try to rob a bank and then find out mid-heist that someone had replaced the guns with toys.
And then, I referenced the hell out of stuff again. Dros Delnoch is from the first book in David Gemmell's Drenai saga; the middle two battles are Black Company; the last is Dread Empire. If I'm going to cross-over, then I'm bloody well going cross-over hard.
The Grey Walker: It's pretty well acknowledged by Tolkien that Gandalf navigated the realpolitik world of LotR to fight Sauron. I'm assuming that this is how the bad guys view him- both holding him in contempt for his schemes and underhanded manipulation, and also fearing him greatly.
Rohan, Mirkwood, and Dale: Most people who don't delve deep into Tolkiens world tend to forget the fact that everyone was at war in this time. I think most of it is in the appendix, and some mentioned in passing in the books themselves, but it's easy to miss, especially if you're only familiar with the movie versions. I just wanted to view more of Tolkien's world through my characters' eyes, is all. Little plot significance, overall, but fun anyways.
Listing the Bad Guys: The sole point of this section was to set up the last line. I hammer my brain for ways to show extreme confidence on the part of the Company, then decided to just go with a list of assets they had and let the numbers speak for themselves.
Kukri knives: They're beyond intimidating. Nothing is scarier than a crazed Ghurka coming at you with one of those. Seriously, hit Wikipedia and type in Kukri. Go on, I'll wait.
The Captain's plan: In the book, the Gondorians say something along the lines of, "They launched a surprise attack by using boats- we had to run for it!" Then I got to thinking, just what the hell had the good guys been expecting? Aren't the bridges broken? How else could the enemy get at you, except by boat? I used this small section to showcase some Company sneakery. I like to think it came out pretty well.
Sapper's explanation of Sorcerous Warfare: I really, really enjoyed writing the dialogue for this section. Also, I got to name the pterodactyl bird things, and that was fun too.
Shaggy's hashish: This was originally just going to be tobacco. Then I remembered that tobacco apparently only exists in and around the Shire. So I swapped it for some Middle-Eastern flavored smoke. Then I realized I might have accidentally made some pro-drug propaganda. Then I decided to hell with it, no one's going to be looking that deep at it.
Zimraphel: I looked it up online at some Tolkien resource center; Zimraphel is an appropriate name for a Gondorian girl. I added her as a love interest solely in order to test myself, because I'm usually crap at writing female characters.
"Luftig-hai burzum": I also looked up Black Speech dictionaries online. I have no idea how accurate they are, but who cares? So long as it sounds good.
One random site I found claimed that luftig meant warrior. Hai, of course, must mean people- uruk-hai and olog-hai, and so on. Burzum is darkness; you can even pick it out of Tolkien's poetry- "One Ring to rule them all, and in the darkness bind them." "Darkness" is translated to burzum. Feel free to check your edition of The Fellowship of the Ring at home, when Gandalf first tells Frodo about the Ring's history.
Luftig-hai burzum = Soldiers of Darkness. Those of you who are familiar with the later books in the Black Company just said something along the lines of, "Ah ha!"
The Girl from the Wadi Hammamat: This is a real song, by the Pogues. If you YouTube the title, you can hear what all the boys were singing at Haroun. I had Waiting for Herb on while I was writing the first paragraph, and so decided to blatantly insert it. I figure, if Tolkien can interrupt the narrative to have characters burst out in song, why can't I?
Haroun hitting on Zim: I also really enjoyed writing this bit, as well. I don't think I made it very obvious, and of course I don't expect anyone to carefully study every word searching for subtext and hidden depth, so I'll just come on out and say it: when Haroun hits on Zim, she discovers that all the southern savages she's grown up fearing are just like the men she grew up knowing, even to the point of using the same pick-up line. It was at that point that she starts to accept possible brotherhood in the Company, because she sees them behave like normal human beings.
I apologize for just putting that out there- I always figure that if my readers can't figure out my meaning from the words on the page, then I'm the one who screwed up- but it was an interesting enough character dynamic that I wanted to make sure people caught. You can go back and reread that section with this in mind, if you want.
Haroun's death: This bloody hurt to write. Not from any great emotional pain or anything, but because I hadn't planned on it. Seriously. I reached that point, thought that it would give a nice hard punch to the guts to anyone reading who's invested in Haroun, and then realized I screwed myself over. At the point that Haroun's last entry was finished, Papa Jack was nothing more than a throwaway name in chapter one. Writer's block ensued as I tried to figure out how to proceed from here.
Eventually, I pushed through it, but it was hard, bitter and unrewarding work at first. Whereas while writing Haroun, the witticisms would fly like flocks of birds and the action was as smooth as glass. To wax poetical about it.
I hope I made at least one reader's chest tighten in grief and shock as they realized that Haroun's entries had been cut off, because if not then that plot twist was fruitless.
Papa Jack's voice: This is the chapter where I hammered out how Papa Jack sounds, and shake off writing as Haroun. It was hard, but it got easier as I wrote more of it. It weirded me out greatly by the time I reached the last chapter to realize that Haroun had only been around for the first 3rd or 4th of the actual story.
Blink and Reader: I know that one could argue that they had died in the previous chapter, but I don't care, I'm putting it here. When I killed Haroun, I decided to cut his squad half to death along with him- just to pound in the fact that the Company got raked in that fight. After some deliberation., I selected Blink and Reader, because I disliked Blink and because I liked Reader (I can't put it any clearer than that). Spike and Bop got a free pass because they're a matched set, and even I wasn't vicious enough to kill one and leave the other alive. I compromised; I just stuck Spike in the hospital and left it at that.
The Corsair mix-up: This was actually the first scene I thought of; before I sat down and wrote a single word, I envisioned a group of sympathetic characters eagerly awaiting their allies for a harsh battle, only to discover that it was the enemy in disguise. I saw their confusion, their fear, their frustration and horror. Basically, I figured that the whole battle would be a reversed version of the books- whenever the good guys are in despair and think they're doomed, my guys would be pumped up and confident. Whenever new hope grew in Gondor's hearts, my guys would be flabbergasted and horrified.
Spike getting shanked, and faking death to avoid death or capture: I always figured that Papa Jack was just putting a good face on here. What I imagined happening was that they were running helter skelter when they were overtaken- Bop and Papa hit the dirt and played dead, but Spike flopped down too late and was spotted. So the Dunedain stabbed him multiple times while Spike's comrades watched. Only once the Rangers had passed did they help him.
Just because my character says something, don't make it 100% true.
The chapter itself: I wrote and posted this chapter very quickly, to avoid losing readers who might have thought that I had finished.
Sauron has several instances of being a total dick throughout Tolkien's canon. I see no reason why his servants would be exempt from this character flaw.
Also, "Even water sleeps, but the enemy never rests" is originally a Turkish proverb that Cook borrowed for his series.
Aya Bastard and Croc: They died because I wanted to kill named characters to reinforce how serious things had gotten. I picked these two because I liked them both, which is a shame, because Aya was supposed to survive to the end.
Fuck, this chapter was difficult to write: Between leaving canon far behind me and having to restock my character roster, I think it's safe to say that this was a rough one.
Papa's guilt: I had thought that Papa Jack should be racked with guilt over the Annals, so I had him in angst about it. Later on, he just kind of stopped, because I forgot to keep it up. This tells me that having him constantly think of his failure was a bad move. If this were a novel, I'd edit it out and try for something better. But I don't have the ambition at this point. I'm just glad I got to the end of the story before leaving. Anything more than that is icing on the cake.
Saintly's "drunken" fights: It was at this chapter that I decided on Saintly's backstory. More on this in the Gorgoroth chapter.
The translation of Sauron: Yes, "Sauron" means foul, or putrid. "Foul" is kind of a dorky way to insult someone, so I went with the alternate option. There should be a reason why he doesn't like his servants referring to him as Sauron.
Nazgul coming to inspect troops: I couldn't think of any way to end this other than having a cliffhanger. More on this vestigial plot point in the next chapter.
FUCK, this chapter was worse to write: I tried and tried and tried to think of an interesting, believable way to write a surprise inspection. I really did. But nothing came to mind. I knew I needed to get a move on, since by this point I knew how far I had to go and I could feel my deadline marching towards me inexorably.
So I banged my head against the literary wall and nothing spilled out. Nothing at all.
Finally, I said, "Eh, screw it, I'll write about Papa Jack killing some guy." I believe that there's a piece of writing advice floating around, saying that if you write yourself into a corner, just have someone burst through the door with a gun. I inverted it- when I hit a brick wall, I simply had my protagonist burst through the door and shoot someone. Metaphorically, of course.
Krauchbangh's endless cursing: I recalled that Tolkien mentioned that orcs were crude and foul of mouth, and that he acknowledged using a translation convention to render their vocabulary choice acceptable. I figure that means they drop cluster F-bombs at every opportunity. To cover my ass, I make sure Papa notes that their endless crudity is wearying to listen to, so I could be clear that I wasn't having my characters curse just to be edgy (Guy Ritchie, I'm looking at you).
Papa Jack is a bad-ass: Almost the only part of this chapter I actually enjoyed writing (apart from Saintly's dialogue) was Papa breaking some poor dumb uruk into multiple pieces.
After all, he's bloody Tiger Hand.
The Nazgul anticlimax: I couldn't figure out a way to make anything interesting happen here. Either the Nazgul notices something off, which would end the story with a bit of a whimper, or he notices nothing, and if that's the case then why bother with it at all?
Blah.
The best thing about this chapter, as far as I'm concerned, is that it let me go on to a part of the story that actually matters.
GAAAH, somebody kill me, I hate this story: I recall hearing about an art instructor who told his class, "You have ten thousand terrible drawings inside of you. Start getting them out now." That's how I feel about the previous chapter and this one together. They don't extend naturally from the premise and the decisions of the characters, they only exist because I didn't think I had enough time to be elegant about it. So I hammered through them as best I could. However, this chapter is at least funny, to me in any case, and it did give me an idea for a spin-off cross-over (CSI: Mordor- imagine the possibilities). Nonetheless, it is essentially filler, even if it does let me come up with new characters to use in later chapters.
Kisander: Kisander's name is the Afghani corruption of the name Alexander in Rudyard Kipling's "The Man Who Would Be King." I had just watched the film version with Sean Connery and Michael Caine before writing this chapter, and had been in the market for a new Middle-Eastern name. Kisander is bright and cheerful because the chapter would have been boring as all hell if he hadn't been jazzed about tracking and clue-scouring.
Kisander facts: ...I make no apologies. It's funny, damn it, or it should be, anyway.
Ghazi: A term refering to a warrior who fights for Islam. Obviously, Islam doesn't exist in this universe any more than Christianity does, but apparently the concept of holy war is still around. I had an interesting background picked out for Ghazi, where he was a holy warrior in an army dedicated to wiping out the Company's employer, but was captured and had to watch his side lose. Having nothing left to go home to, he then joins up with the Company and so on.
Obviously, I never got around to telling that until now.
"No fucking sport, no fucking games...": This is an actual song dating back to WW 2. It describes a small town called Halkirk way up to the north of Scotland. It was apparently not a fun place to go on leave in. Also, this is the second time the characters have burst out into song in my story. Tolkien influences in mysterious ways.
"Stabbing motherfuckers in the face and desecrating their corpses": Part of an actual quote from my recruiting sergeant, except he said "shooting" instead of "stabbing", and "people" instead of "motherfuckers". Don't worry, he was being about as serious as Papa was.
Webfoot on the perimeter: Just after Cirith Ungol went up, I got the idea for Webfoot's marines. So I shoehorned him in here and hoped it would look natural when he turned up later.
Webfoot's alternative name could have been Leatherneck.
Noose: I lifted this joke directly from Monstrous Regiment, in Terry Pratchett's Discworld. I am not ashamed of it.
Papa Jack's story: I am, however, slightly ashamed to say I lifted the idea of an Empire drafting their vanquished enemies directly from the Clive Owen version of King Arthur. I think that it happened in real life as well- the Gurkhas come to mind, but that's not really a good parallel since they weren't actually drafted. But the source I took that plot point from was that movie. I am ashamed of this not because I stole the concept, but because when I steal ideas from other stories, I prefer them to be good stories.
"She was getting betrothed at 13?": Fun fact: Juliet, from Romeo and Juliet, got married at thirteen. Most people who read Shakespeare know this. Most who do not, miss it. Those who don't read Shakespeare and find this out get very uncomfortable for a moment, before assuring themselves that that sort of thing was acceptable back then.
Saintly, however, has no knowledge of cultural relativity, and so speeds directly to disgust.
Saintly's story: As at least one person acknowledged in the comments, Saintly is Ehud from the Old Testament. Check out the Book of Judges, he is somewhere near the beginning of that text. Or, if it's more convenient, hit Wikipedia and type in Ehud for more detail.
Let's just say that while Moses may have received the Law from YHWH, and led the Israelites through the wilderness to the Promised Land in His Name, Ehud racked up a body count worthy of Rambo.
The Book of Judges is hardcore. Also, it's morally challenging, and a theological meditation on human frailness and our inability to cleave to any moral code. However, this is a subject best avoided in a story that glorifies war, violence, and cruelty.
...
Moving on.
"Forcing my jaw up and down and throwing his voice into my mouth": I'm imagining that the same thing happened to Saintly as happened to Frodo in the Council of Elrond. Just like Saintly, Frodo stepped forward and fulfilled the command of some mysterious higher power, without even deciding to. It was vaguely implied in the Fellowship of the Ring that one of the Valar or even Eru inspired him to do it.
Are we to assume that Frodo and Frodo alone in all of the history of Middle Earth received such divine inspiration? I doubt it.
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