Darkness Remains

Memories came flooding back with the force of a gale wind, like the currents rushing out to meet the sea.
Pain, they remembered.

Searing, agonizing pain, more violent then any of the tortures or punishments Sauron could devise. Their essence, their very souls felt as if Morgoth’s claws were ripping open a giant, gaping hole. They felt like a thousand fiery daggers had thrust themselves into their newly opened flesh.

The memory of it brought small shudders of pain to the Eight, even now. They cried out, still sore and weak, with the sun beating down on them, no less. But the memory did not stop.

Sauron’s roar rung, deafening and thunderous in it’s entirety, booming in the ears of the wraiths. He screamed at the ringbearer, who brought about his ruin. He raged at the Eight, his sons, his -creations- for failing him. But they were too blinded by pain, -his pain- and their own, to heed his dying words.
Then, he was gone.
Gorthaur was erased, forever.
Sentenced to the Void to dwell with Morgoth.
Doomed, punished, and bound forevermore.
Inescapably.
But it was not over for the Nazgûl, whose mortal steeds died amid the wrathful eruption of Mount Doom. And so, the shrieking riders waited for their fate, watching helplessly, terrified, as the ground grew perilously nearer and nearer. With a fatal impact, eight black riders plummeted and hit the ground in a might crash.
Thus the reign of Sauron and his nine fell knights-- was over. The Captains of the West cheered; victorious was this bloody day. No one, not even Olorin, wisest of the Istari, would have, nay, -could- have known that the Eight lords of Sauron still lived.
Unconscious and fatally wounded, -though not by flesh- they lay buried under the carcasses of their dead beasts. Their wounds, -which both Sauron and Angmar’s death has caused- would heal over time. And when the day of their return came to pass, the Eight would rise with a terrible fury in their long dead hearts.

And so they have. When they first awoke, bewildered and confused, they sought out their Rings, which Sauron detained from them. Among the ashes and rubble of Barad-Dûr, they were found.
Now the Eight stand, not much more steady then when they rose from the graveyard which once housed the glory of Mordor.
But they were in agreement.
They would travel East, for better or worse.



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NOTES:

My thanks to Aganuzir who pointed out that Sauron would most likely have kept the Nine Rings for himself.