[The Squatter of Amon Rûdh]

Haleg's actions from the moment the first arrow had struck had been the product of instinct and training. Normally he would not have revealed the sword so unceremoniously, but needs must and a good blade just might see Halasan through the fray. Only when he found himself standing in a rough skirmish line did he have time to notice the enemy, although they were much what he had expected: goblin footsoldiers, arrayed in the pilfered remnants of their betters' arms. They showed little skill in fighting and still less courage, relying on weight of numbers over discipline. Even their bowmen were poor shots: given the target he must have presented, he reflected laughingly, his former comrades in arms would have found a better target than his backside. He broke off the shaft a few inches from the head and prepared to meet the rabble.

Durithil had tasted Orcish blood before, and from foes that would have frozen the blood of those who assailed the small party now. These were little more than a gang, whose weapons were of such poor quality that at least one sword simply shivered in fragments against Azariah's mail, and his own axe cut through helms and hauberks as if through butter. It seemed to the axeman, as it had often when fighting these foul creatures, that Durithil drew them on. Perhaps it was the richness of the weapon or the size of the warrior that called forth a fresh lumber of flesh for his edge, but they came on in dozens that day, and he sent them on gladly.

Once an orc who clearly thought himself a great chieftain came at him with a sword of ancient and cunning workmanship, though nicked, dulled and pitted with rust. He showed some small skill, slipping around to Haleg's left to attack his weaker side; but the mercenary had seen that trick played before and with more skill. He sidestepped the clumsy lunge and swung his axe heavily into his opponent's side, tearing it loose with a grunt. Already there were more vermin eager for his steel.

Several times he killed goblins that came too close to Halasan, who wielded his blade with some skill, but awkwardly enough to lay him open. He outmatched most of the ill-led enemy, though; and about his feet, as about them all, lay a small heap of dead and dying orcs over which fresh attackers had to climb. The axe swung and sang, and harvested them as they breasted the grim obstacle. Haleg went about his work in silence, shunning the cries and boasts that many used as a waste of breath. He crushed skulls, severed limbs and opened gullets as others might chop firewood. Not for nothing did many call him "The Woodsman".

It was strange, he thought, that the sword so long in his keeping had gone to so unskilled a man. One would have thought such a blade would be meant for a great warrior or leader of men; certainly those were the men he had been seeking. He had meant to give it to the most perfect swordsman of the age but instead there it was in the hands of a homesteader. It was, at least, performing the task for which it was forged: it was slaughtering enemies of the King, of its bearer and of the whole race of Men. Better there than wrapped in an old blanket waiting for a new Turambar. Perhaps such a man would never come; perhaps such as he existed now only in legend. Certainly he had seen nothing in decades of war to suggest otherwise. Much as men might sing of the great King Elessar, he had himself fought for Brand in Dale. He knew nothing of magic rings or fairy-tale lords, but had seen only death in the War, and much that he had seen he had heard again in song, washed clean of blood and fear and full of pretty speeches. He remembered a lot about battles, but fair words had been few and far between.

So it was that another fight passed for Haleg, as had so many before. It was not long before the orcs broke and fled into the trees, and he stood and watched them go, as he had watched countless foes running. Well he knew also how it felt to run so, having more than once been on the losing side in a skirmish. Long ago this sight had lost its capacity to move him, particularly when faced with enemies so bedraggled and ignoble. Victory for Haleg, then, came in disappointment and disdain. He did not even trouble to gather the weapons of his enemies, so poorly armed had they been, and as he returned to the boat he wondered if this could have been the same race that fought so savagely in the past. "Perhaps none of us are what we were." he mused sadly, and he spoke little for the rest of the day.