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The numbers involved in the final battle: Tolkien is mum on just how large the host of Mordor is. I have no idea if the bad guys were supposed to outnumber the good guys 10-1, 60-1, or 1,000-1. Any one of those three choices would make for a different kind of story, but all three are covered by the blanket statement that the hosts of Mordor were overwhelming. You just gotta make up your own facts to suit yourself in those situations.
Shatarz's supplies: I have heard it said that in modern day warfare, it takes 10 people in support roles to place a single infantryman on the ground, pretty much for the reasons listed.
A shout out to any soldier who counts potatoes or repairs trucks or diagnoses systems or whatever. Without them, every operation grinds to an embarrassed halt.
"They will be eating dust and bitter air": "The French are learning that in Spain, small armies are defeated while large armies starve." -Bernard Cornwell, in his Sharpe series.
Sapper's caltrops: Sapper just invented a magitech version of the anti-personnel mine. I told you, he's a combat engineer.
Paleboy, Mahmoud, and Landshark: I specifically introduced these three for the purpose of using them in the coming battles. Then I went and completely forgot about them till writing this just now.
I guess I'm kind of a ditz sometimes.
Zim's last significant scene: I had literally nothing planned for her at all, except to smooth things over with the Gondorians. So I gave her an illness and hoped that would fill her drama quotient. Then, the many battle scenes took over and I never really got back to her.
So, sorry about that. I told you, I'm crap at writing women's roles.
Saintly's joke: The original plan was to have Papa Jack accompany the raiders to take the Annals back. But I couldn't be bothered to write a fight scene without some canon to lean on, so I gave Saintly a practical joke instead. Judging by the reviews of that chapter, people dug it.
Ancient training drills: I had been recently been introduced to cadence running at this point. I decided to throw it in for some realism and color. The one that goes "Let the bodies hit the FLOOR!" is particularly fun to sing, especially while pwning in Nazi Zombies. You get the Death Machine, start pumping out storm gales of pain and destruction, start stomping your feet to the rhythm...
Anyway. The point is, those lyrics are real lyrics, mostly. For Kisander's chant, I replaced "Airborne" with "uruk", and "Paramedic" with "battle medic", but that's all.
"Don't call me sir, I'm not an officer": I had this big scene planned where Bullet unleashes hell on the uruk for calling him sir. Then I remembered I had promoted him at the top of the page.
*facepalm* So, yeah, I worked around it.
"If we lose cadence, your mates are going to suffer for it": Making everyone around you do push-ups because you personally screwed up is called "fucking your buddy." I know this, because I've been getting familiar with the concept over the past month or two, on both sides of the equation.
"Where there's a whip": If you're really into Lord of the Rings, you probably know of the animated version of The Return of the King. It's slightly hokey, but the music is top notch. If you are unfamiliar with it, YouTube "where there's a whip there's a way". It'll be worth it.
The first draft had the uruks making the whip sounds with their mouths when they found that no whips were available. I rewrote that because, well, it was sorta funny(ish), but not funny enough to justify ruining the scene's purpose.
The unbreakable spears: The motif of spears or arrows that can be broken one by one but are stronger together is an old one. It's sorta kinda the basis of Fascism, fasces being the word used for a bundle of sticks tied together.
So yeah.
I swear to you I'm not a Nazi, I'm not a Nazi, I swear I'm not a...
Webfoot's marines: It was my experience that the Marine Corps and the Army have two very different recruitment pitches.
The Army says, "Look at how much you can gain by joining up. We give you pay, promotion, education. We will give you online courses to expand your skill base. Just sign the dotted line and we'll give you all kinds of benefits."
The Marine Corps says, "You will suffer in Basic training. We will torment you, wear you down, chew you up, and spit you out. Only a real badass can endure what we will do to you. Think you can handle it?"
There is some overlap- I recall that when the Corps tried to recruit me near the end of high school, the recruiters made a point of telling me how much being in the Marines had improved their lives, both financially and personally. And certainly my current recruiting sergeant boasts about how hard Ranger school is. But broadly speaking, the Marines get recruits by emphasizing how hard it will be, and the Army gets recruits by emphasizing how beneficial it will be.
Webfoot's boys are pretty much the modern day USMC armed with swords and bows. If I'm a little hazy on exactly how they operate, it's because I don't have many specifics on them. All of the meager info I have on the military focuses mainly on the Army.
Wolf riders: Seriously though, why weren't there wargs at the Battle of Pelennor? Why?
In the trenches: The Company's basic strategy is to use WW 1 style trench warfare to slow down and absorb the enemy attacks. Every time the word "trenches" is used, just imagine a scene from All Quiet on the Western Front. Except with no rifles or grenades or artillery...
Ach, just go with it. Details just ruin everything sometimes. Just imagine that it's actually possible to have something like the Western Front occur with medieval technology.
Sapper's moment of glory: I wanted to have Sapper quote Colonel Kilgore: "I love the smell of naptha in the morning!" But I couldn't think of a way to do it without sounding cheesy as hell.
Angnar: I made this name up after searching for an elvish dictionary online. Isn't Google wonderful? "Angnar" translates to Iron Rat, on the grounds that to survive five centuries in a death camp you need to have that kind of mindset. Accordingly, I doubt that Angnar was the name he was born with.
Orc and elf side by side: Somewhere in the Silmarillion, there's an account of a battle where the narrator specifically states that members of every race fought on each side. Back when I first read it, I couldn't figure out if that meant some of the orcs had fought with the good guys. It seemed out of character, to say the least, but the words stood: "Members of every race."
For the purposes of this story, I chose to interpret it so that some orcs rebelled against Morgoth.
However, I was too lazy to look up the exact circumstances of the battle, so I went by memory. Send in a comment if you know the battle I was thinking of.
Also, ever since writing this story I have to keep reminding myself that they're called orcs and not uruks.
Czernograd: Czernograd = Stalingrad, in my mind. Enough said.
The title: I was under the impression that "A Steel Rain" was the name of an upcoming sequel to the Black Company, to take place after Soldiers Live. Then I looked it up online and found that I had misremembered it- it's supposed to be "A Pitiless Rain". Oops.
Well, I like mine better anyway.
The Watchers in the Water; the raiders from south and east: I kept trying to find ways to worsen the situation for the Company. I am particularly glad that the Watchers saw military action again. I felt so clever when I came up with that idea.
Boiling water following the ships: Boiling water is one of the signs that a Kraken is near. Wikipedia is both amazing and convenient.
"...often betting on who can who can score the most confirmed kills": Ever notice that historical snipers tend to come with little tags saying how many confirmed kills they got? I did.
Sapper's message: Norwest suggested to me that I try to include a report that they saw two smallish sized uruks prowling around Mt. Doom, looking suspicious.
I loved the idea.
I couldn't think of a way to include the idea.
Nor could Norwest come up with something.
He suggested I should drop it if it didn't fit, so I did.
Today we tossed the Numenorean into the drink: If I did my job correctly, you all nodded with satisfaction while you read about a war crime. Cruelly executing prisoners of war without trial is not how the good guys roll. Luckily, I only deal with anti-heroes.
Papa Jack and the Gondorian knight swapping tales: It's a guy thing. Maybe girls do it to, I wouldn't know, but I can assure you that swapping stories about injuries is a guy thing.
"I broke my arm last year. Jumped off the bleachers and landed badly. It was all out of alignment, poking at the skin."
"Nice. But check this- you see this scar? I accidentally ran straight into a broken off tree branch while on vacation in Yosemite."
"Sweet. You know, when I was five years old, my brother pushed me into the hot tub at my uncle's house. I cracked my head on the side of the tub. I had to get 15 stitches, right here, just above the hairline."
God knows that I do it all the time, I don't see why they wouldn't. The fact that it doubles as a significant plot scene is just icing on the cake.
Zim's farewell: Bye, Zim. Sorry I couldn't think of anything interesting for you to do in the last half of the story.
The summation of Lord of the Rings: Tolkien wrote his story to venerate the humble, to affirm the Christian declaration that our God is a God of the meek and broken, not a God who dotes on tyrants and disdains those without power. This is why the hero is a hillbilly midget who fails in the end, who gives in to his temptation and finds that he cannot complete his quest at all due to his own weakness. Then the in-universe God works through him to renew the world.
An interesting twist on the usual story of strong nations duking it out for supremacy, like in almost every other piece of heroic fantasy out there (Conan the Barbarian, the Drenai Saga, Shannara, etc.; and for that matter Beowulf and Gilgamesh and the Iliad and so on). In Tolkien's world, it is the decisions of two humble little fellas well out of their depth on which the fate of the world rests, not any feats of arms or shows of strength.
Naturally a professional mercenary would be pissed off at finding out he was at best a sideshow of a sideshow.
Sauron in the silver spike: Ah. Aha. Er.
When I wrote this section, I envisioned their spear becoming a magic artifact like in the Books of the South, where the Standard of the Black Company is a fearsome tool of unholy Power. A single puncture wound from the Lance of Passion sent a Nazgul-esque villain called the Howler to death's door. I figured that with the soul of Sauron empowering their new Standard, the would be well-equipped to deal with any more magical threats.
Than, a comment in the review section made me realize that they had in essence basically made an artifact that at any moment could be used to resurrect Sauron, Goblet of Fire style; or drag whoever touches it into psychotic corruption.
Far from giving themselves a weapon of mass destruction, they may have screwed themselves over royally.
...Oops.
I rewrote the section to make it a little clearer what the intial intention was, but it's still a little distressing that I may have set the stage for Sauron's return after what I thought was a happy ending.
Such is writing, I suppose.
Length: Ha! This chapter is the longest of any of them. Funny, that.
Content: You can consider this to be the equivalent to the Appendices, or possibly the endless extra content that the special editions of the movies had.
Copyright 2011, McJunker.
This edition contains the complete text of the original web edition. NOT ONE WORD HAS BEEN OMITTED. SDML conversion and copy editing by Terri Kennedy, 2018-2023. [v1.4b]