Ito clear up a point, Southrons is the euphemism for Haradrim, the army that fielded mumakil/elephants. The Serpent Lord was their chieftain, whom Theoden killed in the Battle of the Pelennor Fields. Will Harry meet that fate? We'll get there eventually. ; )

I've made the previous chapter more accurate in terms of lore, spent several stolen moments amidst school reading through the Appendix to Return of the King, which would explain the delay, for which I apologize. It might be in your best interests to skim it over again.  

I'd like to address another question: why didn't Harry Apparate out of the room he was cornered in? One of Apparition's rules is that the wizard has to visualize the destination in his head. As Harry's been in Middle-Earth for less than a day, his options were rather limited. His Animagus form? Shot down by the orcs infesting the woodlands. At least until the carrion birds arrive…

Finally, the most commonly asked question, the timeline. It is currently in the early Third Age, and over 900 years prior to Aragorn's birth.

Now, may I present…

Chapter III: The Bird of Prey

The scent of freshly spilt blood and the enticing promise of a meal were carried by the winds to the far corners of the region, attracting flocks of crows to the battlefield. They were barely visible amidst the darkness, passing over the marching ranks of the Witch King's host in favor for the countless that had been slain in the short but furiously fought battle.

There was but a single avian shape that was not a carrion bird, gliding among the crows with superior speed and more conviction laden in every flap of its wings. It was a Maltese falcon, a proud bird of prey, not of corpses.

It also happened to be Harry Potter's Animagus form.

His eyes were keener now than they had been at any point of his life, especially prior to the Muggle vision correction surgery he had taken. Even the darkness of night could not impede his sight. A natural falcon would have difficulty, but not he. The night vision ritual affecting only his Animagus form was the only ritual he had ever dared to attempt.

Harry would never have thought that the fire ignited by Arvedui was capable of the destruction that he had witnessed. It was only a speckle, though its small appearance was belied by its brightness, illuminating the creeping silhouettes of orcs rushing past.

Anxiety weighed heavy on his chest, even as Zephyr bore him weightlessly aloft. The new world in which he found himself was already turning on its axis for the worst. The flow of orcs rendered visible by the fire was only the slightest fraction of the total forces commanded by the Black Captain that had so easily sapped the fighting spirit of the Dunedain and plunged his own heart into despair.

Dismissing the thought from his head, Harry focused on the task at hand. The palantir must return to the hands of its keepers, lest the Enemy would gain another advantage over the Dunedain, who were already overwhelmed once, and were outnumbered. Harry understood suddenly, that the Dunedain would likely always be outnumbered by the teeming forces arrayed against them. It was the nature of creatures such as orcs to be numerous.

Wheeling off, Harry propelled his diminutive feathered body downwards, breaking free of the current and climbing to another gust of wind, driven by a sense of purpose to make his descent faster than he had ever done so before.

He caught sight of the carcass of a horse lying on one of the winding paths leading to the south of the meadow, and the body of its slain rider further along of the path. Skillfully he manipulated the currents, rapidly approaching the ground, before tucking in his wings and pulling into a dive.

The wind roared into his sensitive ears, and Harry unfurled his wings as he rapidly approached the ground, using the air resistance to the utmost before reverting to his human form.

He absorbed the impact as he rolled; smoothly regaining his feet in a maneuver he had performed countless times before. He stood still for a moment, a few paces ahead of the dead horseman, as his gaze roved throughout the surroundings. The horseman had been riding desperately, but had not made it to the tree line at the end of the meadow, stricken by black darts that pierced his back.

The first of the party had fallen here. Wary, Harry set out, drawing his robes close around him to ward off the chill.

It was not long before he came across an orc lying spread-eagle on its back, a well-aimed arrow imbedded firmly in its chest, a look of confusion on its face. Harry blinked in surprise, feeling a sinking feeling in his gut. By experience he knew how taxing shooting from horseback was, it made the most sense that the fleeing Dunedain were now on foot. After all, how far could horses travel before fatigue overcame them?

Quickening his pace, laying his wand flat on his palm.

“Point me, Palantir.”

The wand spun jerkily, completing a dozen rapid revolutions before it pointed determinedly south.

Harry suppressed a grimace. How far could the Dunedain have gotten before the orcs had finally forced a confrontation?

He broke into a run, driven by an urgency to recover the Palantir and to return to his besieged comrades before they were overrun.

A guttural warcry alerted him to the threat. Harry abruptly turned left towards the source of the voice, bringing his wand to bear. He allowed his right leg to collapse at the sight of the orc that leapt over the bank on the side of the path.

“Expelliarmus!”

The Disarmer intercepted the orc in mid-leap, blasting the black body back into the copse of the trees, the axe torn from its grip sailing overhead, narrowly missing him and thudding into the ground away.

Harry pushed himself onto his feet, and furiously tore the tomahawk out of the ground, scattering dirt in every direction and faced the bank from which the orc had assaulted him.

“Accio orc!” he bellowed.

Leaves were scattered as the orc hurtled towards him, arms flailing wildly. Harry, not quite confident of his aim with a throwing axe, terminated the Summoning Charm. The orc's flight ended and it sprawled in a heap several feet away from his position.

Harry strode towards the orc as it struggled to regain its bearings, lifting the tomahawk over his head. He placed a feet onto the orc's back as he reached it, established a firm footing, and brought his weapon crashing down. The blade crushed the hapless creature's head, smashing it like an overripe melon.

The orcs had left a rearguard, scant though it was, which left hope that the Palantir was near, and that the orcs were less numerous than he had feared. Rearguards typically were directly proportional to the number of the main force in classical warfare, as he learned in his training as an Auror. It was a concept that even the dullest of beings could not fail to grasp. That he had faced only a single orc gave him hope.

Choosing to leave the sullied weapon imbedded in the skull of its own wielder, Harry scoured the black blood from his attire with a quietly muttered Cleaning Charm.

He resumed the hunt.

He raced along, panting lightly, eyes constantly sweeping his surroundings for hidden enemies. The path was strewn with rotted leaves and twigs, implying that it was a road less traveled.

Until now.

He groaned in despair as he arrived at the scene of the Dunedain's last stand. Orcs had fallen as they advanced, brought down by arrows, but their numbers were such that it carried them to the position of the Dunedain, disproving his theory. Eight of the Rangers, their mounts at the end of their strength, stood their ground, and died for it, the bodies of twice as many orcs choking the path.

For a moment, he stood there, silent. For a moment, the brave new world revolved around him alone.

He took to the sky again, Maltese falcon hurtling through the air like a thunderbolt, sharp eyes anxiously searching the world below, processing it at an incredible rate.

Orcs, traveling alone, moved southward, blots that were dark even compared to the landscape. Harry realized that they must have been the injured ones, a shiver rippling his feathers, moving at differing paces after the band.

Orcs did not care for their own.

The realization hardened his mind. Even Death Eaters, the most inhuman class of humanity, fought for their brethren, even if it was induced by the knowledge that a captured comrade would likely divulge important information.

The falcon screeched its triumph as it spotted the great black wedge roving across the plain. Flaring his wings, Harry soared towards the oblivious band of orcs.

Giving an angry screech, he sank his outstretched talons into the vulnerable neck of an unsuspecting orc. Tightening his grip, he strove to lift the struggling orc into the air as he scanned the mass of black bodies, intending to drop the orc from a great height, desperate for a glimpse of the crystal orb he had come for, but was forced to release the dying creature, the attempt sorely sapping his strength. The lacerated orc was flung into the crowd, and Harry caught an upward draft, falcon body snatched away from the lunging thrusts of pikes and spears.

He prepared to make another run, but was forced to abandon the attempt as shafts were launched into the sky, coming dangerously close to piercing his wings. Like a starving buzzard, he hung above the orcs, beyond the range of their bows, venturing an enterprising endeavor to get closer. Each time, he was met with a volley of arrows.

This continued for some time. The persistent falcon skirted an imaginary boundary above them. If that boundary was crossed, arrows rose in a wave that the bird wisely flew away from, whereupon resumed its lurking.

Harry thought to continue baiting them, until their arrows were expended, but eventually the orcs caught onto his tactic, and regulated their usage of their precious missiles, their best marksmen firing at him whenever he descended. He sensed the beginnings of a shortage, but his strength would fail him before the last of the arrows would disappear into the night sky.

Changing his strategy, Harry returned to the ground, several hundred feet behind the orcs. His supernatural transformation from animal to human must have been witnessed, for their pace quickened almost imperceptibly.

“Accio Palantir.”

There was a shriek of surprise, then raucous laughter, but no shining Spiritus Mundi answered his summons. Harry followed them.

A score of orcs broke off from the band, and approach him in two lines, spreading out to form a net with which to snare him.

Rearguard - this is what it should have been, Harry thought grimly.

No matter. He walked forward confidently.

“Incendio alei,” he whispered.  

The Layering Charm and the Incinerator worked in conjunction to emit a faint, vague glow from the tip of his wand. “Incendio alei.”

The glow grew stronger, gaining substance as it became a distinctive fiery orange.

“Incendio alei.”

Still it brightened, until he resembled a phantom carrying a torch. The orcs recoiled briefly at the bright light, but recovered, resuming their march, unsuspecting of their impending doom.

Smiling, Harry released his triple-layered Incinerator.

A massive flume of fire sprang from the ground, shriveling and charring the vegetation. Harry conjured a gust of wind, fanning its fury. It reacted explosively, surging forward too quickly to be avoided. The orcs broke up their formation in a panic, and turned tail, but were overtaken by the wall of fire, and were consumed in the conjured inferno.

Calmly, Harry stepped over the ashen remains of his twenty opponents, preceded by the wall of fire that lurched forwards, devouring the dry grass that fueled it, gaining speed as it gnawed at the retreating backs of the remaining orcs.  

It warped his senses, became surreal as Harry fully settled into the familiar role of hunter. The orcs were fleeing en masse, flying before his wrath. He pursued them relentlessly, a slavering wolf seeking a lamb in a flock of bleating sheep.

His smile disappeared as he realized that the plain would soon end, and the orcs disappear into the woodlands that he had seen from above and scatter, significantly reducing the possibility of ever recovering the Palantir, and by extension, he would be unable to return to the Dunedain.

He considered returning without the Palantir. It wasn't a decision he relished making, but he kept to his hunt. He knew intimately how irreplaceable magical artifacts were. It was well worth the lives of hundreds of men, and even his own.

He leapt, pulling himself into the air with feathered wings. He hovered above, well out of range for the orcish archers, and pondered his next course of action. A viable strategy was to land n front of the band and conjuring another wall of magical fire, entrapping the orcs and burning them to ash.

The falcon uttered another irritated screech as it analyzed the plan and found the drawback. The Palantir's magical nature would likely protect it from destruction, but its potency could be damaged by the fire.

The bird hung there in consternation, flying in an endless loop. Finally, it made its decision, and reverted back to its human form -

A thousand feet in the air.

The wind howled, and Harry squeezed his eyes shut, thinking that perhaps the wisdom in making the decision was a bit lacking. His fist was clenched around his wand, refusing to let it be ripped away by the wind.

He opened his mouth, but his breath was already stolen. Desperate, he fell back to nonverbal magic, chanting the incantations in his mind.

Great streaks of light blasted out of the end of his wand, hurtling towards the mass of orcs below.

The force of impact of the curses was such that he was suspended in midair by the wave of pure residual magic. Then he was over, and he fell.

Another incantation whispered in his mind warped his senses, and he bizarrely slowed as the very matter around him contorted. His torso rose, and he landed gently on his feet.

Purging his mind of the magically-induced disorientation, he surveyed his handiwork. Craters sundered the site, created by the destructive charms he had cast from above. Surrounding them were the charred, battered corpses of at least fifty orcs. It was a charm engineered to damage organic matter rather than objects that were lethal to creatures with weaknesses to the light. Harry was, overall, impressed with himself. The spells were usually effective only against massed enemies such as Inferi in terms of cost-benefit, and he hadn't specialized in fighting the undead, so he had very few opportunities to cast that particular charm outside of practicing and mastering it.

There were still rules of combat to adhere to though, even when victory seemed to be his. Chief among them was “Don't curse and stand there admiring the results, bitch!”

Typical Mad-Eye Moody.

Too often though, the gritty, paranoid Auror was right. Harry was once again reminded as an orc lunged drunkenly at him from behind. He spun around, hand shooting out to catch the orc by the wrist. The abomination hissed at his vice-like grip, the knife in its grasp quivering as it struggled to free itself. It was badly burnt, but Harry could not distinguish the scorched skin from its natural black color. Silently, he twisted, and the orc screamed in pain as he pressed against it, sinking the blade into its stomach.

A movement out of the corner of his eye drew his attention away from the dying orc. Harry turned to see an orc scampering away as quickly as it could, fleeing the carnage and the sorcerer that had rained death upon its brethren.

Orcs didn't care for their own.

Harry felt a rush of simmering rage at the thought. He realized now, that until then he had accredited orcs some humanity, but now was greeted with the reality of it.

Orcs were pure monsters. They weren't vampires or werewolves, there were no exceptions to the rule. Decency went against their very nature, the laws that defined them. He didn't care that fleeing from a dangerous opponent as himself was wise.

That orc was going to kick the bucket.

He was almost tempted to conjure a meteoric blast to vaporize the cowardly creature and scatter its atoms, but held his peace. It would not do to waste energy to slay a single orc, not when he had asserted himself dangerously close to the point of magical exhaustion.

Deliberately, he lifted his wand, pointing at the retreating back of the orc.

“Accio sword.”

He waited for the many swords littering the crater-ridden site to answer his call. At least one lay in front of the orc, and would cut down the orc on its way to his hand.

He frowned in consternation when nothing happened.

“What...” he muttered under his breath.

He had used the very same charm to achieve the very same effect only hours before. His magic was still present, ready to be drawn from his core. Suddenly nervous, he shifted his focus onto specifying what type of sword he wanted to summon. Perhaps the mechanics of the new world had subtly changed his magic, narrowing the field of what he could do?

“Accio knife!”

Nothing. Harry looked around, but no knives were shooting towards him.

“Oh my god,” Harry breathed, aghast.

It wasn't about the orc now, or any philosophy, it became a matter of pride.

A burst of energy revitalized him, and in a haze of rage he reeled off every variation of sword he knew. Flamberge, cutlass, rapier -

“Accio Katana!”

“Bloody hell!” Harry swore. Orcs didn't wield Japanese fucking katanas!

“Accio scimitar!”

Blood spurted as a chrome black sword - a scimitar, apparently, Harry thought dryly - sliced through the air, and both of the fleeing orcs' calves, severing both arteries.

“Yes!” Harry hissed, punching the air triumphantly, immensely pleased with himself.

The torso of the orc toppled, and Harry's momentary giddiness abruptly ended as a sphere fell out of its arms, slowly rolling to a stop. Grimly, he approached the palantir, heedless to the rapidly dying orc as he passed by.

He halted as he reached it, and stooped before it, examining it critically.

It was a curious thing.

The surface was crystalline, and Harry strained to identify what substance the palantir was made of. It radiated a soft golden glow inwardly, somehow more pure than the sun, and its faucets did not suffer the moonlight to pass into its core. Inside swirled an earthen mist, ever in motion, reminding him of a mild sandstorm he had witnessed in the Gobi Desert.

Slowly, he reached out and hesitantly laid his hand on it.

His hesitancy was justified, to his disadvantage.

Reacting to the contact, it revealed six other palantirs floating in an endless plane, sisters of the one he held in his hand. He was drawn towards one in particular by a faint living presence, lying dormant at the opposite end of one of six closed connections. Decisively, he willed that connection to open.

Thereby exposing him to what lay on the other side.

A strangled scream of wild pain tore its way out of his throat, defying his token attempt at suppressing it as his hand was seared beyond all endurance. He recoiled instinctively, but his palm and fingers adhered to this hellish thing, conducting waves of scalding heat from his hand to his arm, bringing him to his knees.

The swirling storm of the palantir suddenly parted, forced to the extremities of the orb, thinning the soft golden glow, but intensifying it into the very fires of the purgatory and revealing a monstrous eye, a black slit wreathed in flame.

The Eye locked gazes with him, and Harry strained against the foreigner that clawed at his vulnerable mind. It was a powerful presence, but he had enough experience with wraiths neither living nor dead that he recognized that its still formidable power was diminished, that it was only a shadow of its former self.

He finally reacted, the gates of his mind snapping shut, presenting only an impenetrable wall that the very sea would break upon. The shadow that had invaded his mind darted to and fro, dark tendrils brushing against sections of the defenses, applying pressure. Harry responded, moving the wall outwards, resisting the advance of his foe.

I have broken impenetrable walls before, young Istar, an omniscient voice pierced his mind, somehow bypassing his defenses and reverberating throughout his cranium, shaking the very foundations of his mind. Harry refused to concede any sign of weakness to the unimaginable agony. Mustering his mental reserves, he strengthened the walls, and detonated them, triggering a metaphysical storm of lethal shrapnel that was projected outwards, sweeping the shadow away, riddling it with fissures and propelling it out of the blurred boundaries of his mind.

He was in the real world again. He had not broken a sweat. He wasn't even short of breath.

He stared unblinkingly at his hand, eyes raking over the grimy but smooth skin unmarked by the phantom pain.

Tightening his mental defenses after reconstructing them, he stalked towards the once again innocent-looking artifact, and placed his palm on it forcefully, broadcasting a challenge to the Eye, but he received no answer. The presence was gone, though its taint lingered.

“What?” he muttered, shaken to the core.

His confidence that he would have triumphed over his distant adversary wavered. Leaving the darkness of his thoughts, he absentmindedly conjured a sheet of cloth, and wrapped the palantir in it.

He stood there at the crossroads. He knew what the Palantiri were now; Seeing-Stones that were connected by a network that allowed its masters to communicate, or contest their wills. He had entered the game, and had survived to fight the next match.

Somehow, the Enemy had breached that network.

He knew his mission with a painful clarity, though the mechanics of the palantiri still made him dizzy. He would have to safeguard the other masters of the palantiri, and excise whatever entity that had access to them. Perhaps he could even contact the others before they were taken by the Eye. He, a powerful wizard in his own right, had nearly lost. How would normal men fare, and how would their succumbing to the Eye's will impact the war?

“Arvedui. Show me the King.”

The palantir responded docilely, the storm ending, the surface flaring, and gave an overhead view of a battlefield. Masses of Rangers were fighting on the road leading to the outpost, grinding against the black columns of orcs and goblins, the dread Black Captain unseen. The image centered on Arvedui, surrounded by a complement of Dunedain, shouting orders and directing the influx of reinforcements coming from behind the barricade of the outpost.

Harry smiled in relief. The Dunedian had launched a counterattack and seemed to be succeeding with the aid of a substantial amount of reinforcements. His work there was done.

Now, he would go far away, and end the existence of the shade that haunted the palantiri. He desperately needed a grace period to adjust to the new world. The failed Summoning Charm was an alarming occurrence, and it was sheer fortune that whatever rules that governed magic recovered from the dimensional rift after the combat had ended. It would be for the better if he was adapted to this world before plunging into the battlefield, constantly fearful of his spells being impossible to cast.

Weary, he closed his eyes, and willed himself to persevere.

Once more the falcon took to the skies, the swirling globe safe within the grasp of the talons stained black with orcish blood.

Night had fallen.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Sauron hasn't yet regained his body, nor does he have possession of a palantir.

A hint?

He's a wraith.

Please read and review. The time I devote to writing is mostly composed of stolen moments amidst heavy schoolwork, but I persevere, just as my Harry does. So, come through for me if you find this fic to your liking. 