“Did you find Captain Anders?” asked Amdirien.

“I did,” replied Gwethien.  “You can take off the ring.”

“Oh. Yes!” replied the invisible princess.  “I had quite forgotten I had it on.”

Amdirien and Gwethien walked down many narrow passages and beside torrents of rushing water until they returned to the surface by a small stairway.

The vampire briefly explained the situation to the princess.  “Your precious Captain Anders and his men are making their way to the northern fortress.  Gadron and his men are already there - as, it is believed, is Altazîr.”

The Princess gave a bit of a smile.

“Looking for revenge?” asked the vampire.

“The safety of the city is my only concern,” replied Amdirien.

“You're a terrible liar,” laughed Gwethien.

“Well… maybe a little,” answered the Princess.

It took many hours to reach the castle.  The sun was beginning to rise as they made their way along a well trodden dirt road leading towards and imposing fortress on the coast.  It was still raining - a terrible thunderstorm, befitting the situation. Looking south across the bay of Umbar they saw an enormous black ship, trimmed with gold and sporting sails red as blood, sailing along the coast into the bay.

The castle was built on a large outcropping of rock with ocean on three sides.  The road they followed wound its ways between jagged spires of stone, thrust from the ground like trees in a forest.  As they came within view of the gate they heard a voice from behind a stone.

“Your Majesty!” cried Anders.  “What are you doing here?”

Amdirien and Gwethien scurried behind the rock, where they found thirty rangers ready for battle.

“The rangers and my guard were overrun,” explained Amdirien.  “I was pursued into the sewers, and made my way here.”

Gadron was understandably disturbed by the news.  “Did any of my men survive?”

“I don’t know,” replied the Princess.  “Where is Thorongil?”

“He went into the castle an hour ago,” replied Gadron.  “He just ... climbed the wall - I've never seen anything like it!  I told him the garrison was at least fifty strong, and usually closer to one hundred, but he insisted on going in immediately.  If he wants to commit suicide…”

“What is your plan?” asked the Princess.

“We are hoping to catch someone leaving the castle here by the road,” replied Anders.

“If Thorongil went into the castle an hour ago, there is no one left to leave,” grinned Gwethien.

“Let's go see,” said Amdirien.

“Your Majesty…” objected Gadron, but it was to no avail.  The Princess, with Gwethien at her side, strode confidently up to the castle gate.  The Rangers gasped and followed after her, setting arrows to their bowstrings.

There wasn't a soul in sight, either on the outer wall or the battlements above.  The Princess gave the gate a push and both halves gave way.

Captain Anders dared to grab Amdirien’s arm and pulled her back.  “Perhaps I should go first, Your Majesty.”

“Very well,” she nodded.

Anders drew his bow, as did the other rangers.

“After you,” sighed Gadron.

Anders counted off.  “Three… two… one!”

He rushed through the open gate, followed by the other rangers.  Half turned right and half turned left, looking for targets. They found nothing but a few dead Gondorian soldiers.

“All clear!” shouted Anders, slowly returning his bow to an undrawn state.  Princess Amdirien followed after her Rangers. Before them stood a tall keep; black stone set in place by the masons of Numenor long ago.  No movement could be seen through the windows of the upper floors, and the iron gate before them was shut. Amdirien nodded towards it and Anders went to check if it was locked.  It was, and despite their best efforts the Rangers could not force it open.

“Search around the keep,” ordered Amdirien, whose confidence commanding her soldiers was growing quickly.  “Anders, take your men left; Gadron, go right.”

The rangers split up as ordered, and Amdirien and Gwethien were left standing in the courtyard.  Gwethien felt the door to the keep.

“There is a spell on the door; a closing spell,” she said.  “Thorongil’s work.”

“Why would he wish to keep people out?” asked the Princess.

Gwethien sniffed at the gap down the middle of the gate.  She evidently liked what she smelled. “Not to keep people out, little one,” she smiled.  “To keep them in.”

Amdirien at first did not understand.  “Can you open it?” she inquired.

The vampire drew her slender rapier.  The golden hilt held a long glistening blade coated in a dark liquid which dripped off the blade like blood.  She thrust it through the crack in the door and with a boom like thunder the spell was broken. “After you, Your Majesty,” she mocked.

Amdirien thrust both doors inward and stepped through the threshold.  Her nostrils were immediately assailed by the stench of blood and death.  With a gasp she stumbled backward, back into Gwethien’s arms. Before her in the sixty-foot wide keep lay at least fifty dead men.  Half wore the colors of gondor and the others wore elegant suits of dark steel plate armor - the sort of men Gondorians called ‘Black Numenoreans.’  They were men of Altazîr’s house, presumably. More than half the marble floor was coated in pools of crimson blood.

The door at the back end of the hall was open, and a window on that side of the room was shattered.  Gwethien began walking towards the open door, beckoning Amdirien to follow. She stepped into a pool of blood and stooped down.

“Beautiful!”  she exclaimed.  She ran her pale hand through the blood and then stood up, eagerly licking the red liquid from her fingers.  As she did so a little color came to her alabaster white visage. She shivered with both fear and admiration in her voice.  “This, little princess, is why I protect you - why Sauron dares not harm your family. Even trapped in his mortal coil, The Predator lives!”

Amdirien stood still as a statue.  She put her palm to her forehead, faint and nauseous.  She saw that a few of the dead soldiers wore emblems on their gauntlets of Gondor’s other provinces - of Belfalas, Anfalas, and Pelargir.

“Some of these men were from the north,” she shuttered.

The vampire laughed.  “They were in his way, Princess - that is all that mattered to him.  Remember that next time you are sipping tea with Thorongil and his wife.”

“You're wrong about him,” said Amdirien.

“I've seen him at his… best,” replied Gwethien with a shudder.  “Come on, we should keep going.”

Amdirien slowly made her way across the hall, trying her hardest not to step in the blood.  She stepped out the door at the far end of the hall and saw that in the shattered glass under the broken window sat a black shield with two of Thorongil’s silver daggers embedded in it up to the hilt - the blades sticking out the inside of the shield, with one of them stained red.

“Grab those knives,” said Gwethien.

“Can’t you?” replied the princess, not used to being ordered around.

“Possibly not!” the vampire hissed like a snake.

“Vampires can’t touch silver?” inquired Amdirien through labored breaths as she struggled to dislodge the daggers from the shield.

“Don't be ridiculous!” replied Gwethien.  “It's not about what they’re made of, but rather who made them.”

After Amdirien retrieved the daggers the two women looked around outside.  They found a stairway cut into the rocks, leading down to a series of sturdy wooden piers jutting south like fingers into the bay.  A few small ships of war were docked there. Several bodies, mostly Black Numenorean soldiers, lay along the path and on the docks, their blood carried by the rain down into the sea.  Half the Rangers - Gadron’s detachment to be precise - were making their way down to the piers.

A lone figure, clad in black armor trimmed with silver, stood at the end of the docks on the largest pier.  He held a glowing red sword by his side, the light from which reflected off the wet wood of the piers. His cloak fluttered in the winds of the ocean storm.

“Thorongil!” exclaimed Amdirien, but he did not hear her through the storm.  His mind was elsewhere. Gadron’s Rangers approached with arrows on their bowstrings.

Amdirien rushed down the stone steps, nearly slipping several times.  “Thorongil!” she cried. “Rangers, stand down! Gadron, stand your men down!”

Gwethien did not follow the princess.  She could feel Thorongil’s blazing anger, like the rush of hot air from an oven.  The Predator did not often lose his prey.

As Amdirien caught up to her Rangers on the pier Thorongil’s black armor fizzled away, replaced by the armor Amdirien had given him.  The once beautiful sea-blue cloak was soaked and tattered. He sheathed his sword and ran his hands through his hair in frustration.

“He got away!” he growled.  “A minute faster and I would have had him!”

“Altazîr?” clarified the princess.

Thorongil nodded.  “He escaped the keep by the window.”

Amdirien stepped close enough to Thorongil that her Rangers would not hear her speak softly.  “Some of those men were Gondorian soldiers, Captain.”

“And if they had not fought so valiantly, Altazîr would now be in our hands,” replied Thorongil.  “They died in an attempt to prevent a revolt - in a way. Tragic victims of war.”

Amdirien didn't nod, nor did she shake her head, or say anything in reply.  She just stared out at the sea, as Thorongil had been doing. She wanted to go home to the cool winds of winter in the Citadel, and her stately duties in the capital.  She wanted to sit with Elerína and study treaties and legal theories, and forget the blood and the rain. She had seen enough violence and death for her lifetime.

Thorongil went to speak to the Rangers, who had been joined by Anders and his men as well.  He ordered them to search the castle for anything that might tell them of Altazîr's plans. Thorongil then rejoined the Princess at the end of the pier, where she stood softly crying - her tears washed away by the rain.

Thorongil stepped close behind her.  “I’m sorry,” he said, putting his hands on her shoulders.

“Sorry?” sobbed Amdirien.  “What have you to be sorry about?”

“I brought you here…”

Amdirien laughed morosely through her tears.  “You brought me? I dare say you forget which of us is royalty in these lands.  I brought you to this god-forsaken city. It was my idea to come here, to drag you and Anders into this waking nightmare.  My stupidity has already cost most of my guard and half the Rangers in the city their lives, not to mention Captain Pedron, and...”

Thorongil spun the Princess around and looked her square in the eyes.  He had no dark jest or sarcastic parlance this time; he spoke kindly to her: “Let's get a few things straight, Your Majesty.  First, you were only allowed to come here because I was going as well. Second, you can claim royal authority over this city all you want but I have thousands of times the experience you do at everything to do with rebellions and warfare - and Manwë himself sent me to protect all of Middle Earth - so anything that happens here is more my fault than yours.  Third, no one has died on your account.  We came to this city in the endgame - Altazîr’s plan was already in motion.  People were going to die; at least some died for someone they believed in. All the blood that has been shed is on Altazîr’s hands.”

Amdirien nodded and embraced her immortal friend.  “What will we do now?” she asked.

“I don’t know,” replied Thorongil, patting her on the back.  “I can leave the Rangers here with you while I kill Altazîr - or we can all take a ship back to Pelargir, if you feel the need to leave at once.”

“I'm not going to run,” replied Amdirien, finding her courage in the maia’s embrace.  She still had the greatest soldier in history, plus thirty of Gondor's finest Rangers.  “When Altazîr is dead, that will leave a dangerous void that only I can fill, now that he has eliminated most of the city's leadership.”

Amdirien and Thorongil returned to the keep and joined the Rangers searching the upper floors for details of Altazîr’s plot.