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weapon more traditional than a pole. Certainly he can be free within the confines of the
camp, on his word as an officer& However, a week later the Rohirrim left on the
Mordorian campaign, to win the crown of the Reunited Kingdom for Aragorn, and that same
day Kumai and all the other wounded were sent to the Mindolluin quarry. Gondor was
already a civilized country, unlike the backward Rohan&
How he managed to survive those first hellish days, with a busted head and a concussion
that kept sending him into pits of unconsciousness, was a total enigma; most likely it was
simply Trollish stubbornness, to spite the warders. All the same, Kumai had no illusions
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regarding his fate. In his time, as required by the tradition of well-off Trollish families,
Kumai had followed the entire career path of a worker in his father s mines at Tzagan-Tzab,
from miner to surveyor s assistant. He knew enough about mining to understand that no one
was concerned with economics here; they were sent to Mindolluin to die, rather than earn
the quarry owners some profit. The daily food-to-production-quota ratio for Mordorian
prisoners was such as to be bald-faced killing on an installment plan.
By the third week, when some prisoners were already dead and the others managed to more
or less adapt to this murderous cadence (what else could they do?), an Elvish inspection
team swooped in. What shame, what barbarity! those folks carried on. Isn t it obvious that
these people are capable of a lot more than driving wheel-barrows? There are plenty of
experts in all kinds of trades here take them and use them properly, damn it! The
Gondorian bosses scratched their heads abashedly: our bad, your eminences! and instantly
conducted a skill survey. As a result, a few dozen lucky ones traded the hell of Mindolluin
for work in their chosen fields, leaving the quarry forever.
Whatever, the One be their judge& As for himself, Kumai did not think it proper to buy his
life by building heavier-than-air aircraft for the enemy (that being his trade): some things are
not to be done because they must not be done, period. An escape from Mindolluin was
obviously a pipe dream, and he saw no other ways to get out of here. In the meantime,
undernourishment was doing its work he became more and more apathetic. It is hard to
say how long he would have lasted in this mode maybe a week, maybe even six months
(but almost certainly not a year) were it not for Mbanga, the One rest his soul, who
managed to slam the door on his way out so spectacularly as to also solve all of Kumai s
problems once and for all.
Chapter 35
Close to evening a stranger visited the Mordorians barrack where the Engineer Second
Class was being wracked by a consuming fever. He was wiry and quick in his movements,
his swarthy Southerner s face marked by decisiveness most likely an officer off an
Umbarian privateer who by a quirk of fate wound up at Mindolluin rather than dangling off
the yardarm of a royal galley. He stood for a minute over the bloody mess already presided
over by hordes of fat flies and grumbled to no one in particular: Yeah, prob ly a goner by
morning& Then he disappeared, only to re-appear a half an hour later and, much to the
surprise of Kumai s fellow inmates, begin treating him. Ordering them to hold the patient
down, he started rubbing a yellowish ointment smelling sharply of camphor right into the
bleeding welts; the pain was enough to jerk Kumai back from wobbly unconsciousness, and
had he not been so weakened, his fellows would not have been able to keep him pinned
down. Pirate (as the prisoners took to calling him) kept working calmly, and just a few
minutes later the wounded man relaxed, melting with copious sweat, and sank into a real
sleep like a stone in a pond.
The ointment was truly miraculous: by morning the welts had not only closed but started
itching like crazy a sure sign of healing. Only a few inflamed, and the Pirate, who showed
up before morning call, got to work on those. Kumai, mostly back to life by then, greeted
his savior gloomily:
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The Last Ring-bearer
I don t want to sound ungrateful, but surely you could ve found a better use for your
wonderful medicine. What use is saving the one who s going to die soon anyway?
Well, a man has to do stupid things from time to time, or stop being a man. Turn a bit&
yes& Bear this, engineer, it ll be better soon& Oh yes, speaking about doing stupid things.
Forgive my curiosity, but why have you stayed to die in this quarry? You could have been
sitting pretty in the King s labs in Minas Tirith right now.
Kumai grunted: It s the simple wisdom of prostitutes I ve followed all my life: don t hustle
while under a client& and cut himself short when it suddenly occurred to him: how does
this guy know about my trade when I ve told no one about it and have concealed it during
that skill survey?
A commendable stance, nodded Pirate without a shadow of a smile. The most interesting
thing is that in our case it s also the most pragmatically correct one; actually, the only
correct one. You see, all those who have hustled back then are already dead, whereas you
will soon be free, with a bit of luck.
Dead? How do you know?
I buried them myself, that s how. I m a gravedigger here, you see.
Kumai digested this in silence for some time. The most horrible thing was his first thought:
good riddance! And then: my God, whom did I turn into here? He did not understand
Pirate s next words right away:
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