[littlemanpoet]

Falco Boffin had stood by his word, or run around, would be fairer to say, for a crowd gathered near the hearth fire to hear the tale Eodwine had promised to relate. The Rohirric king's messenger's cup had been refilled, and the crowd quieted. Eodwine began.

"The Mouth of Sauron was not destroyed at the end of the War of the Ring. He was wounded and weakened, but he survived. He fled Mordor and traveling north, passed Rhun to the east, the Iron Hills to the north and east, and the Grey Mountains to the north. He snuck past Carn Dum and settled among the northernmost of the Hills of Evendim. There he built his keep, and gathered hirelings, and spread his influence and power, such as it was.

"He spread his influence as far as the ruins of Annuminas on Lake Evendim, and Fornost to the east, and toward the Misty Mountains, the Ice Bay, and Ered Luin to east, north, and west. When the builders and masons came north from Gondor to rebuild King Elessar's home in the north, they were captured and imprisoned, serving as slaves to keep the Master's fields tilled and beasts fed. The Master he styled himself, but he kept another name closer to hand in his fortress. And if his slaves became useless or tried to escape, they were sent to the Master where a fate worse than death awaited them."

Eodwine took three swigs from his ale mug and glanced from face to face among the crowd, his own face dark with memories he was about to relate.

"I was the last of those captured, and my fate would have been the worst, for I tried to escape and failed, too weak to get far from my captors.

"And what fate could possibly be worse than death, you ask? I shall tell it this way. The Mouth of Sauron was no Ring wraith, but he had his life from the sorceries of the Dark Lord, for he was thousands of years old. When Sauron passed from Middle Earth, the Mouth of Sauron weakened almost unto death, but at last discovered a means by which he could survive, for lives of men. He drank the blood of living men. He built himself a black temple after the manner of the one his Master had erected on Numenor during the Second Age.

"In this temple he called himself Herugor, Lord of Horror. On a black altar he laid down his victims. He cut them at both wrists and ankles with a knife poisoned with a curse as well as potions to keep wounds bleeding open. The blood would flow and gather in a moat around the altar. Herugor collected the blood in a chalice, and drank the full cup down once each night. With spells, this drink gave him life for another day.

"The curse in Herugor's knife tied the ghosts of his victims to that temple. Herugor had enslaved a fallen Maiar, whose power was unguessed; but this evil Maiar fed upon the ghosts of the slain. This was the fate worse than death.

"And I was spared, for on the night I lay on the altar, Herugor's knife at the ready, Falco Boffin and Falowik Stonewort and Finëwen and others came to my rescue. Through Falco's cunning and stealth, and my desperation, and through the courage of these others, Herugor was wounded by his own knife and was himself devoured by the evil Maiar. Maybe that being dwells there still, we know not, for we did not stay. Dark is my tale, but it has a good ending, for Herugor, who was known as the Mouth of Sauron, has passed, as did his Master before him. Drink your ale cups with a good heart, for the Kings of the Fourth Age rule now, and another evil has been smitten to the core."

"Hear hear!" members of the crowd yelled, and raising their cups, drank a toast to the age of the Kings.