The bat flew away into the shadows.
When the Balrog met its destruction, the people of Dale rejoiced, and the Dwarves of the Lonely Mountain celebrated as well.
Garrett, having obtained new materials and achieved new accomplishments, was equally pleased with the outcome.
But far away in Mordor, certain beings were less pleased.
The smiles faded from their faces.
Whether in Minas Morgul or in Barad-dûr, silence prevailed. The Nazgûl said nothing, and the dark flame-shadow with slit-pupil eyes fell into deep thought.
The situation had escalated.
According to earlier observations, the Balrog should have been able to fight that man to a standstill, perhaps even hold a slight advantage. But...
Who could have anticipated him changing his equipment?
If the reports were accurate, his new armor contained elements derived from dragon-fire and wyrm-scales. It seemed he had extracted something from the essence of great dragons, enhanced his capabilities to such a degree that the Balrog was no longer a match for him.
Such research results were truly intriguing.
As one of the greatest craftsmen who mastered the most advanced forging techniques in all of Middle-earth, Sauron found himself quite interested in these developments.
It seemed that his former master Morgoth's creations still held untapped potential waiting to be discovered and exploited.
But that matter could wait for another time.
He recalled a certain sensation from days past.
When Garrett spoke the Black Speech inscribed upon the box, Sauron's power had followed the resonance of that utterance into the world, reaching down to the ancient flame-demon deep underground, the Balrog, and issued a summons.
Yes, one Balrog had awakened and answered his call.
But...
It was not the only one that had responded to the dark words.
From the farthest reaches of the Frozen Wastes in the north, faint, fragmented, and chaotic echoes had reverberated back through the darkness. Those ancient beings had sensed the call of their old master's servant, yet because of the extreme distance and some impenetrable barrier, they could not break through to answer.
This stirred Sauron's oldest and darkest memories.
When Morgoth was overthrown by the host of the Valar at the end of the First Age, many of his servants had fled, the surviving Balrogs scattering from the ruins of Angband and the fortresses of the Iron Mountains, crushed beneath the fall of the mightiest dragon ever to exist, Ancalagon the Black, whose corpse had shattered mountains and sank beneath the northern seas.
Could it be that some had survived in those desolate lands?
"Master."
At that moment, the Witch-king stepped forward and bowed his head.
"The Balrog has been slain."
He delivered this report.
A voice of malice whispered forth from the fiery shadow. Distracted, Sauron replied, "I am already aware of this."
The Nazgûl fell silent, awaiting further commands.
A moment later, as if remembering something of import, the fiery shadow issued another command, conveying its will in the Black Speech he himself had devised long ago.
The assembled Nazgûl glanced at one another through their empty hoods, then their forms dissolved like mist, departing from Barad-dûr on their new mission.
The Witch-king alone remained in Minas Morgul, keeping watch against Gondor while overseeing other hidden schemes and dark plots.
In the year 2963 of the Third Age, three Ringwraiths secretly departed Mordor. They slipped northward past the Ash Mountains, carefully avoiding the realms of the Free Peoples, traversed through the wild lands of Rhûn, and pressed ever northward until they reached beyond both the Lonely Mountain and the Grey Mountains that lay behind it, arriving at last at the desolate, uninhabited, snowbound wastes known as Forodwaith.
This endless white tundra was a land of eternal cold, not formed by natural weather patterns, but steeped in ancient malice, the lingering curse and power of Morgoth himself.
Yet the Frozen Wastes were not entirely devoid of life. In the western coastal regions, some hardy Men endured the harsh conditions, wrapped in heavy furs to ward against the bitter and unnatural chill, living in ways that seemed primitive to those of the south.
For various reasons, the sparse records of the south called them the "Lossoth" or "Snowmen of Forochel."
In Middle-earth, unless one searched through old tomes deliberately, few even knew of their existence. For nearly a thousand years, only wandering Rangers had maintained occasional contact with these isolated folk.
The most recent significant event was when Rangers of the North had recovered the Ring of Barahir, the very heirloom that Aragorn now wore, from their careful keeping.
Though the histories called it a "recovery," the exchange had been cordial and respectful, for the ancient heirloom of the House of Isildur, the Ring of Barahir, had once been given to them as a gift from a King of Arthedain in gratitude for the Lossoth's aid in darker times.
Of course, the Nazgûl's true purpose had nothing to do with these Snowmen. In truth, they might not have even known such a people existed in these forsaken lands.
Although the Lossoth lived not terribly far from ancient Angmar, during the wars of old they had migrated together to places even the Witch-king could not easily reach, slipping beyond his sight and thus escaping the worst devastation of those conflicts.
"North. Into the Frozen Wastes. Continue north, to a place untouched for tens of thousands of years."
That was the command the Ringwraiths had received from their Dark Lord.
When they crossed the Grey Mountains and scaled a frigid range of snow-covered peaks, entering at last into the truly sealed-off wastes beyond, they were forced to alter their method of travel.
Having gravely underestimated the supernatural cold of this cursed place, their fell steeds froze to death.
The Nazgûl stood in silence over the stiff corpses of their black horses.
These were no ordinary mounts. Strictly speaking, they were among Sauron's specially bred beasts. They possessed remarkable resilience, not only resistant to the corruption of evil but actually strengthened by its influence, growing larger, more muscular, and more terrifying in form.
Ordinarily, such fell steeds could gallop for months atop the snow-choked peaks of the Misty Mountains without suffering ill effects. Yet here, within only a few days of entering the deep wastes, they had frozen solid and perished.
It seemed that the closer one drew to the very heart of the northern wastes, the more savage and unnatural the cold became.
Snow swallowed the corpses of the fallen steeds within hours.
The Ringwraiths pressed onward.
A few dead mounts mattered little to them. Compared to their master's command, such losses were insignificant.
The journey dragged on, monotonous, silent, nearly devoid of any communication, as the Ringwraiths followed a vague and uncertain route, edging ever closer to some half-sensed destination.
Long months passed in this dreary fashion.
After crossing yet another range of ice-bound peaks, one Ringwraith stopped abruptly. He lifted his gauntleted hand and attempted to flex his fingers, only to feel unexpected stiffness and resistance.
As spirits bound within armor and raiment, they should not have possessed physical sensation at all.
And yet, his spectral form did not seem wholly under his control any longer.
The commands of his will reached his limbs, but they answered only with a strange, unnatural delay, as if the cold itself had begun to affect even wraith-flesh.
"Keep moving forward."
The first to notice this disturbing anomaly warned the others. He struck his armored hand against his thigh, shook loose the frost that had inexplicably formed upon the black metal, and forced his stiffened fingers to move.
The other two wraiths stirred as well, their ancient armor creaking faintly as they shifted, testing their own responses.
It was deeply unsettling.
The Ringwraiths were not living Men. Neither spirit nor armor should know cold or feel its bite. By their very nature, they were bringers of deathly chill and fear, not its victims.
Which meant they were drawing close to something truly terrible...
The foremost Ringwraith gazed ahead into the endless white wastes, his sense of foreboding and dread intensifying with each step.
Many more months dragged by in that frozen hell.
At last, after what seemed an age of wandering, the leader called a halt.
"This must be the region our master commanded us to explore."
He recalled the ancient maps of Middle-earth he had studied in life. They were likely near the very edge of the known continent now. A little farther north, and they would reach the frozen seas.
"Separate. Search in different directions. Find what calls to us from this place."
And so the three Ringwraiths divided, each searching alone in a different direction across the white desolation.
This "scouting mission" remained frustratingly vague. They had no clear target, no specific guidance beyond the pull of ancient malice. As a result, they encountered constant obstacles, and their progress was painfully slow.
The three wraiths wandered those cursed snowfields for years.
Until one of them sent out an urgent summons to his brethren.
Before a great rent in a mountain ridge, he had felt an extreme concentration of malice, an ancient, primal malevolence so dreadful that even a Nazgûl recoiled at its corrupted touch.
After some time spent traveling, the three regrouped at last and advanced together toward the ominous fissure in the mountainside.
No one knows what they discovered in that desolate land at the uttermost north of the world, nor what horrors they endured in the depths beneath.
What is certain is that they lost their physical shells. Their spirits wandered long through the wraith-world before returning to Mordor.
When the three finally reappeared before their master in the Dark Tower, Sauron could sense a cold aura radiating from them.
"Master."
The leader reported, "At a shattered rift deep in the mountains, we found a passage leading down into the deepest reaches of the world."
"Far beneath the ice and stone lies a ruined fortress from the Elder Days."
"Within its broken halls are many things we know well, but they are far more evil than even we have become."