Leídan Aznawar of Khand

From the deep lands of Khandur he came. Nameless he travelled around, not entrusting anyone with his real identity or his nature. He wore the garb of his people tight around him, face and head covered also in large scarves. His robes were in sand colour mostly, there he disliked the black and red most peoples of the plains and desert clothed themselves in. His land of origin lay between the Ered Caradhram in the northwest and the Ered Harmal in the southeast. Both mountain chains met each other in the north through a rather small gap into the dangerous lands of east Mordor. It was mainly dry land on the steppe like plains. More to the mountain chains the land was somewhat richer, but against the Ered Caradhram grew rather a little. His people called it the mountains of darkness. Over the tops seemed always-dark clouds hanging and they never vanished, not even by a sigh of wind. The mountains in the east, Ered Harmal were different, full of life and covered with pine trees. He belonged to a nomadic people, who lived in large tents. In a tent lived a whole family, children, women and men together. The tent knew men and women quarters and a part was for both. Guests were welcomed in the union section. He had not known anything else, not other ways than those meant for men and those meant for women. He had his own culture.

Leídan Aznawar was the current name he was known. He wore the traditional garb of his people, distancing greatly from the other peoples of the plains living more to the west of Khandur and in the river delta of the Harnen. He was used to the intense heat in the summer and the icy cold during the winter months. His tribe Azumenúkhad had the grounds near the Ered Harmal. They travelled depending on the season to the north or to the south. Leídan was a silent man mainly when together with the other men of his tribe. Among family, he was more relaxed and he could easily make jokes with his younger sister Neida. He was the second son, third born out of seven children together. Neida followed him by two years. Neither he or Neida were married or had a partner they loved. The tribe forbade contact with other women other than his sisters, mother or aunts for Leídan. For Neida it was the other way around. She could not meet other men. So brother and sister had only each other, except for friends of their own sexes.

Other than the Harmunekhad tribe and other neighbouring ones, the Azumenúkhad tribe held to monogamy marriage, where a man married one women and vice versa. It had always been as far the history of the tribe went. Why they differed from the surrounding tribes was unknown. Neither it could be explained why the men and women had a fair light brown hide and grey eyes. The Harmunekhad tribe were a harsh people, habiting the western plains of Khandur with their chariot wagons and their great horned mammals. The cultures in the north referred to them as the Variags. Leídan didn’t know anything of all the campaigns throughout the ages that the Variags had done around the border of Gondor and in the land itself. The Azumenúkhad tribe were mostly on themselves, having fairly little contact with the surrounding tribes. Only when one of the tribes made claim over the Azumenúkhad grounds, Leídan’s tribe went to war and fought ferociously. What was theirs remains theirs. More than once Leídan had rode to war together with the other men of his tribe. Instead of armour, the Azumenúkhad wore multiple layers of clothes that protected them to weather as well in fight. They wore nothing else than the clothing of the plains. Their traditional garbs were clean in religious meanings, armour was not. Then stiff leather or metal armour could mean death if you fought in it in the icy winter weather or under the burning of the summer sun. The Variags fought in armour derived from the coastal tribes near Belegaer. In the wars the Azumenúkhad women fought sometimes along the men and knew to fire arrows or wielding swords. It was difficult to determine when you met a member of the Azumenúkhad tribe, if you dealt with a man or a woman, because of the headdresses and the robes they wore over their clothes against the sand of the plains.

Leídan and Neida had left together the lands of Khandur for a journey of adventure to the west. It had taken more than forty nights to cross through Khandur to the green river delta of Haruzan. The Harnen went from east to west, and half way joined a river from the north in it, the beginning founded in the Ered Caradhram. At the crossing of the two rivers was a bridge, where the road the green delta followed to the coast. Here began the land of Aradhzúm, or called in the northern tongues, Harondor. It was quite dangerous to cross these lands with the pirates from the coast sailing inland. The colourful clothes and the snit of them were unlike the anonymous plain robes of the Azumenúkhad. Brother and sister rode no horse, but another kind of animal that was barely seen in the western lands of Umbar. The Azumenúkhad tribe called it “the ship of the desert”, an animal standing high on it’s legs, having a high back and was even a more loyal friend than a horse could be. Animal and rider befriended each other for life, and protected each other against thirst, hunger and danger upon the wild plains of Khandur. The Azumenúkhad called this ship Azumeh. Other than on horseback, it also acquired a special way of riding. Leídan and Neida moved both with the walk of the Azumeh.


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They travelled westbound with on their right the east march of Harondor. The march was one large empty plain, where nothing grew, not even grasses. It was a treacherous land known for quicksand places in unexpected spots. Over the green delta of the river they could see the sanddunes and rocks. The Harnen flooded in the spring over the land on both sides, when the snow of the Ered Harmal melted. It was still winter and thus the water stood at the lowest point in the river. If too much water came from the mountains, the road where they now travelled over vanished as well below water level. Then the sub road near the sand dunes would be used. Segment for fertile ground would flow down on both flooded sides and so when the summer arrived, the water would leave again and so new plants grow there again. The banks were half marches where many water birds lived. More to the west, they met a second river coming from the north, joining again in the Harnen. Leídan and Neida crossed the river by bridge and continued westbound. Their Azumehda could be quick and sometimes ran by themselves to lose their energy.

Leídan was fond of his ship, and trusted his Azumeh more than he would do to his brothers. An Azumeh didn’t know betrayal or jealousy. Above him were a brother and sister, and below Neida two other brothers and a sister. Then there were his parents as well. His father was renowned man among the tribe, his mother respected because she brought all her seven children alive and healthy in this world. Despite of the other tribes where women usual belonged to the possessions of the man, among the Azumenúkhad it was not so. A man could become renowned for his bravery and valour, but never as respected as a woman who gave new life. The mother was a symbol among the Azumenúkhad, highly regarded. To give new life was the hardest task for a human and according the legends among them, it was gift given the women by the Gods. The man had received other gifts. Where Leídan or Neida went, home or on travel, there were two moments on the day, where they took time to pray to their Gods. Usual they performed their prayers in the morning before breakfast and in the evening before going to sleep.

Bro and sis avoided the small villages, knowing that they would not be welcome there. The coastal peoples were rather suspicious of the peoples from the inlands, and even more from people who belonged to the eastern tribes. The Variags were widely known of their raids, as they rode their chariots to the east, attacked the cities of the Umbarian pirates there and returned with the loot of a raid back to their lands. On the highways they were a nice attraction to see for the local population, as they didn’t see nomads each days of the lands in the east, and especially from lands around the Ered Harmal, where in the mountains fairies lived. Throughout the lands in the middle of Harondor believed Men that the fairies were blessed with long life, could withstand the extremes of the weather and stood closer to the Gods. Sometimes offers were given to them, and requests or questions were given to them, so they could ask the Gods for an answer. This was important to do, because not honouring the fairies could influence your fate in life. You had to keep them on your side.

The Azumenúkhad were an indigenous people from east Khandur. According their annals guarded by the master historian they came from the east thousands of years ago, and settled west of the Ered Harmal over more than four thousand years ago. The lands were named differently then. The ancient land of Hildorawar was forever lost. The legends said that all men in the world came from there, lands where they had awoken by the Gods after a long eternal sleep. The sun had been high in the heavens. The first men and women were said to be long of shape, faired hair in shades between gold to black and eyes like the shades of seawater, or like the sky before a storm. Of the Gods had come truly just one to them, and many of Men loved his words and believed the promises of rich lands in the west. In later times this God had settled deep in the northwest of Middle Earth, faraway from them. The legends told further of a great land of green in the west, but to reach it two mountains chains had to be crossed. The ancestors of the Azumenúkhad were already adapted to the steppe plains and didn’t feel to travel full to the west over those mountains, but at the crossings around the ancient lake of Rhûnaur the tribe had chosen to go south. The lake was still there, far way to the north. The legends told on that the Azumenúkhad came through a mild land of endless steppes, where green grass waved in the wind. To the south they travelled around a large desert, which they called the Haradwar. It was the anvil of the Gods. It was impossible to cross that land. So they had travelled around it, coming upon a fair innersea and from the tribe had gone around a rich mountain chain, that thousand years later came under the shadow of one of the Gods, who had chosen that land around that sea as his stronghold. The Azumenúkhad had left that land in better times and entered the lands of later Khandur through a broad gap between the mountain chain of Mordor and another farther to the east. The Azumenúkhad had always known of the darkness ruling in Mordor.