Though much of Rohan lay in ruin, it did not take Caledorn long to find a horse. In the wake of Isengard's brutal advance, many had been left to wander the plains. They were now riderless, untethered, their masters slain or scattered.

The steeds of Rohan were swift and tireless, born to the wind and the wide fields. Caledorn rode hard across the great grass sea, the land sweeping past beneath him like a rushing river.

He passed no armies, no banners, only charred fields and splintered fences. Rohan had been gutted, its heart torn open by Uruks and fire. Once-green lands lay black beneath his horse's hooves, and every farmhouse he passed stood silent and hollow.

But the East was calling.

Somewhere beyond the far reaches of Gondor's grasp, beyond Dagorlad, beyond the corpse-roads of Mordor's fringe, Rukil fought a war of his own against Sauron and the Khan who ruled the Easterling tribes. If Rukil still lived, he might be the key to piercing the Dark Lord's eastern flank.

He made camp that night in the lee of a broken wall, the remains of a Rohirric watchtower shattered in the first wave of Isengard's assault. He did not light a fire. He ate in silence, eyes fixed on the stars above, though even they seemed dimmer these days. On the horizon, both to the west and in the east, smoke billowed. All of Middle-Earth, it seemed, was at war now. 

======================================

Three days beyond the ruin of Rohan, the land began to change.

The gentle slopes gave way to dry, broken scrublands. The air grew heavy, not with ash, but with dust and the sharp tang of iron. The roads vanished entirely, replaced by vague trails marked only by trampled grass and black stones piled in crude stacks.

Caledorn passed no villages or caravans, only ravens and the bones of oxen picked clean beneath the sun.

By dusk on the fourth day, he reached the edge of a ravine. It was steep, narrow, and lined with spindled trees that had never known green. He dismounted, guiding his horse along the path, boots crunching on shale.

That was when he heard it.

Steel, clashing. Muffled cries. And then silence.

He moved quickly, crouched low, following the sound downhill. The rocks gave way to a clearing at the base of the ravine, flat, stony ground ringed by crooked boulders.

In its midst, three Easterlings stood over a fourth, armored in heavier scale armor, but bleeding from the throat, his spear shattered beneath him. The other three, tribesmen from one of the fallen tribes, had curved scimitars still dripping red, their warpaint caked with dust and sweat.

They hadn't seen him.

Caledorn didn't hesitate.

He slipped behind the largest stone, drew his bow, and loosed the first arrow before the others could react. It struck the lead man square in the back. The second turned just in time to catch a blade through the gut as Caledorn closed the distance, moving fast and low.

The last swung wide... too wide. Caledorn stepped past the blow and drove his knife beneath the man's ribs, twisting hard.

Then it was over. The wind returned, carrying only dust and the distant caw of carrion birds.

Caledorn stood amid the bodies, breathing slow. He knelt beside the dying warrior they had slain, pulling away the man's helm.

His features were younger than Caledorn expected: barely a man, perhaps no more than seventeen. The paint on his face bore the mark of a tribe unknown to the West, one that did not serve the Khan. His armor was crude but worn with pride, the sigil on his breastplate stained with blood.

His eyes, dim with the nearness of death, stared through Caledorn rather than at him. They were glassy, unfocused, fixed on something far beyond the ravine. A single tear, dark with blood, traced a slow line down his cheek. He raised one trembling hand toward the fading light above, fingers curling like smoke.

"Zarhâdûn... kâdu-lug anûr. Narûk veth kadûn," he whispered, his breath catching on the final syllable, the sound barely more than a breath.

Caledorn took his hand and held it firmly. For a fleeting moment, there were no sides. No war. No West or East, elf or man. Just two warriors, caught beneath a wide uncaring sky.

Then the hand went slack. 

"No dhínen ar sídh," Caledorn murmured, a quiet benediction as he gently closed the boy's wide, glassy eyes and laid him down upon the blood-soaked earth.

He searched the man quickly for anything that might identify him or provide information on his errand, but found no letters, no maps. Just a token: a coin, smoothed and blank on one side, with a rune pressed faintly into the other.

It read: KHIRAD.

Judgment.

He pocketed it.

By nightfall, he had burned the bodies and moved on, deeper into the wilds of Rhûn. He was close now. 

================================

The sky was wider as he moved further east, emptier, and the hills rolled like bones beneath thin skin. There were no trees, only thorny shrubs and standing stones carved long ago with letters no Elf could read. Birds did not sing. Even the wind whispered low, as if afraid to be overheard.

Caledorn's horse stopped at a rise in the land, ears twitching. He heard it too. A metallic creak. The soft crunch of weight shifting over loose rock.

He slid down, one hand on his dagger hilt, the other drawing his cloak tighter.

"You've come far for a dead cause," said a voice; low, accented, and dry as sand.

Caledorn turned at the sound, and from behind a ridge of weathered stone there stepped a figure swathed in robes of desert hue, his face half-hidden beneath a black scarf. Dark eyes, keen and wary, regarded him with a mingling of suspicion and quiet mirth.

Hadar.

Much Rukil's right-hand man seemed as of old, strong yet worn, with that subtle gleam in his gaze which, though dimmed by years and hardship, yet lingered unextinguished.

Caledorn drew a slow breath. "You have not changed."

A dry chuckle escaped Hadar's lips. "That is one thing. Yet much else has shifted since last you trod these lands, elf."

Between them fell a brief silence, while the wind tugged at their cloaks and whispered through the stones.

"You stray far from the dunes of Harad," said Caledorn.

"And you, far from your elven towers and tall trees," replied Hadar. "Yet I deem we seek the same flame... the fire burning at the heart of the world."

Caledorn's hand fell from his sword's hilt. "I seek Rukil."

"Of course," said Hadar, with a bitter twist. "All do. The Eye desires his head, the Khan bids it be set upon a banner, and now the West sends one of its ghosts to track him down."

He paused, voice dropping to a shadowed whisper. "You are close."

At this Caledorn stiffened. "So he yet lives?"

Hadar's eyes sharpened like a blade's edge. "He lives. For now. But not as you knew him. Much has he borne, and more endured. And he will not welcome your coming."

"Then he must make an exception."

Hadar regarded him long and hard, then drew forth a flask from his belt, drinking slow and deep before casting it to Caledorn.

"You will need this. The wells ahead are tainted, poison set by Orc-craft. Half a scouting band fell to it but last week."

Caledorn caught the flask and gave a curt nod. "You remain with him?"

"Until he falls," said Hadar. "And perhaps beyond."

"You say he is not as I knew him," said Caledorn, falling into step beside Hadar as the broad-shouldered Haradrim turned to follow the faint and winding path before them. "What shadow lies upon him now?"

"I'm afraid our cause has not been as successful as we first hoped," Hadar replied, a hint of sorrow in his voice. After you departed, we had few and scattered victories. But with each triumph, we suffered also setbacks. We were but a handful, and the Khan's power is a tide beyond the reckoning of the West. Ere long, we were driven like hunted beasts into the hills, chased from place to place, outlaws on the run. And then..."

He paused then, as if the memory was too painful to speak of. "They took him."

"For five months I searched for him, but the Enemy hid him well. When we did find him... He was not the same. I think it's best you see for yourself." 

They traveled for some time before Hadar motioned toward a narrow cleft in the hills, now cloaked in the long shadow of dusk. There, half-concealed beneath thorned brush and wind-worn stone, lay the remnants of a battered encampment: earth scorched black, weapons broken and left to rust, and bones scattered and forgotten. A few tattered tents still stood, no more than a score, their canvas flapping wearily in the gathering wind.

"Is this all that remains of Rukil's army?" Caledorn asked. His voice, though quiet, bore the trace of disbelief.

Hadar gave a short nod as he led him through the ruin.

"Aye. A remnant only, and a shadow of what once marched beneath his banner. Fire and steel and the dark march of time have done their work, and betrayal did the rest."

They came at last to the largest of the tents, weathered and sagging but still intact. Hadar paused before its entrance.

 "Before we enter, I must ask you to prepare yourself; you may no longer recognize the man who once was Rukil, for he no longer walks in the light of Men."

With that, he pulled back the flap.

Inside, the air was close and heavy with the mingled scents of smoke, incense, and herbs. The only light came from a few guttering candles set in crude holders, their flames dancing across the canvas walls like ghosts. Shadows swayed and clung to the corners.

At the far end of the tent sat a solitary figure, cloaked, hooded, and still. His shoulders hung low, hunched beneath a burden unseen, and the silence around him was thick. Yet from within the folds of his hood, a faint glimmer caught the light, restless and watchful.

Caledorn stepped forward, slowly. His breath caught in his throat.

Then the figure stirred.

"Late is the hour in which you choose to return, old friend," came a voice from the shadows. It was rasping and hoarse, as though long unused, yet within it lingered the echo of what once was.

Caledorn inclined his head and knelt.

"And yet, I return still," he said softly.

The hooded man shifted slightly, and the flamelight trembled with the movement. Though time and suffering had bowed his form, some part of the will that once nearly toppled an empire remained. Dimmed, yes. But unbroken.

"Then speak," Rukil said quietly. "Tell me what has drawn you from the lands of light to this place of ruin and silence."

Caledorn stood still, his gaze steady.

"I came seeking aid," he answered, voice low. "But it seems, old friend, that it is you who stands most in need. Tell me: what befell you while I was gone?"

Rukil looked up then, and the candlelight caught his eyes.

It was him: still Rukil, still the man Caledorn had followed once beneath eastern stars. But there was something broken in his gaze: eyes wide and haunted, as though sleep had forsaken him. His skin was pale and drawn tight against the bone, near translucent in the half-light, and the crimson war-paint, still etched in a single line across his face, burned stark against that ghostly pallor.

"I have seen much," Rukil said, and his voice was frayed by suffering. "More than any man should bear. The Enemy took me. Bound me in chains of iron, but also of thought and flame. They dragged me down beneath the mountains, into the deep places where light withers and memory decays. There are things that dwell down in the depths that bear no name, and should not be spoken of in the light of the sun. I do not know how long I was lost... or if I ever truly returned."

He raised a hand, thin and shaking, and upon his finger glinted a ring: forged of cold, pale gold, and set with a blood-hued stone that seemed to drink the light. It pulsed faintly, like the heartbeat of a living thing.

"This ring," he whispered, eyes unfocused, "is no trinket. It is a thorn of the Shadow, a shard broken from something older, crueller. It shows me things I was never meant to see, visions that carve themselves into thought like fire into flesh. I have glimpsed lands drowned in flame, towers crumbling beneath a nameless sky... I have heard the voice."

He drew breath, shuddering.

"A voice like storm and stone and fire. It does not merely speak, it presses. It fills the mind until all else is drowned. It names me. Commands me. Yet still I resist. Still... I remain Rukil."

But even as he said the words, his gaze faltered.

The flamelight trembled.

Rukil's hand shook as he clenched his fingers around the ring, knuckles whitening with the strain. He pulled at it once, twice, but the gold would not yield. It clung to him as if it had grown from his flesh, bound by more than metal.

"It is both my burden and my curse," he said at last, his voice low and frayed, like something long worn thin. "I cannot cast it off. Nor can I shake the shadows it has sewn into my soul. And yet..." his voice faltered. "with what tatters remain of my own will, I resist. I fight it still."

Caledorn bowed his head, and a silence fell, heavy and full of sorrow. The candlelight danced between them, fragile as memory.

"I am sorry," Caledorn said quietly. "That I was not here. That I did not come sooner."

Rukil looked at him then, the edge of bitterness flickering behind his gaze; but it faded, tempered by weariness.

"Even had you stood at my side," he murmured, "I doubt the tide could have been turned. The sea broke upon these shores long ago, and took what it wished. Some battles are lost before the horn is ever sounded."

He let out a slow breath, long and ragged, and the weight of years far beyond what he had lived seemed to settle upon his shoulders anew.

"There is little hope left in this world," he said. "Only the shape of it. The illusion of light, flickering just beyond reach, enough to keep fools marching toward a horizon that will never come."

The ring pulsed once, faint and cruel, casting a crimson gleam across his sunken face.

"And yet," he added, almost too softly to be heard, "still I march."