Chapter 134: The Urgent Saruman

In fact, the arrival of the Nazgul did not take long to alarm Radagast, who was enjoying life in Mirkwood; the birds and beasts startled by Khamul peered from afar at the blazing camp, and after that shrill shriek, they relayed the information to Radagast, who had been out of touch while smoking and playing with his vehicle.

Unlike Saruman, who was keen on power, and different from Gandalf, who was single-mindedly intent on returning to Valinor, the Brown Wizard Radagast was very interested in the flora and fauna living in Middle-earth, especially enjoying driving his rabbit sled to gallop through the dense vegetation and diverse animal species of Mirkwood—the part not eroded by dark forces, of course.

Therefore, sometimes it was not an easy task for the White Council or other colleagues to find this Brown Wizard; most of the time he was out playing in Middle-earth and not at home. Of course, this did not mean that Radagast was negligent of his mission; he was simply more willing to enjoy life to a certain extent, and this Brown Wizard was extremely honest and kept his word.

Long ago, Radagast had promised Saruman to help him monitor every move of Sauron's minions, with the range being the area from the Iris River to the Iris Fields; he had always been diligently fulfilling Saruman's commission and had dispatched the birds and beasts that were friendly to him.

Actually, regarding the study of birds, Gandalf was far better than Radagast, and the birds also respected Gandalf more, but the Grey Wizard was always very busy; apart from the Shire, he rarely lived in one land for a long time, and cultivating affection with birds was actually a very time-consuming matter, so sometimes, the birds were more willing to be close to Radagast, especially in the Mirkwood area.

Having received the news, Radagast personally went to investigate the place where Allen and Khamul had fought in the dead of night, saw with his own eyes the dead Fell Beast and a pile of clothing that no one dared to touch, and then picked up a Morgul Blade whose blade had vanished.

There was no help for it; for such things that constantly radiated dark power, all the Elves were not very willing to approach, while the Dwarves did not participate in the work of clearing the battlefield. At Dain's signal, they distributed all the spoils to the Humans, so after the battle, the Dwarves returned directly to the Long Lake Town camp to begin resting; for them, this battle also required a long time to recover from the spiritual damage.

And Allen's subordinates, under the reminder of the original residents of Long Lake Town, did not clean up the corpse of the Fell Beast and the relics of the Nazgul, because that was easy to cause illness; that kind of ailment would bring unparalleled pain to people, and it was incurable.

Putting away the Morgul-blade that only had the hilt left, Radagast drove his rabbit sled and immediately returned to Rhosgobel; he did not like the animals bred by Sauron at all.

Upon returning home, Radagast smoked a few bowls of Old Toby fiercely to soothe his stimulated spirit, and then hurried toward Orthanc, where Saruman resided.

Radagast did not know the true intention behind Saruman asking him to monitor Sauron's minions; he only thought about relaying the information he had obtained as quickly as possible.

At this time, Saruman had just obtained some manuscripts from Eregion, which contained some vague accounts of the forging process of the Rings of Power; the White Wizard, obsessed with pursuing power, was doing his best to study these manuscripts.

He did not care for Radagast's visit; if he were not still pinning his hopes on obtaining the intelligence he wanted from this slovenly colleague, he would not even want to see Radagast.

However, today, the Brown Wizard, who seemed like a fool in Saruman's eyes, brought him an unexpected harvest.

"My friend, coming to see me in such a hurry, there must be some special news, right?"

Although in front of Gandalf, Saruman belittled Radagast as worthless, but facing the person himself, and since Radagast had not made any mistakes, he still maintained basic etiquette, only that Radagast's smell of smoke and slovenly image made the expressionless Saruman frown.

【To be honest, I have been using a source-switching app to read and follow updates recently; it has many voices for reading aloud, and both Android and Apple versions are available.】

Radagast, sitting on the other side of the table, could not feel Saruman's dissatisfaction at this moment at all; he lowered his head and said tremblingly: "An unbelievable thing happened near Long Lake, yes, just near Long Lake; there was a burning camp, an evil Fell Beast, and Sauron's evil servants."

"Is Sauron finally unable to restrain himself from attacking Humans? I have no time to help those Northern Men; you should go find Gandalf for this kind of thing; he will be interested."

After speaking, Saruman was considering how to hint to his foolish colleague to leave his territory, instead of continuing to talk about things that were of no benefit to him.

"No, no, no, there were only the corpses of the Fell Beast left there, as well as a pile of clothing that once belonged to the Nazgul, and this."

As he spoke, Radagast took out the Morgul-blade that only had the hilt left from his bosom.

Saruman was not interested in the hilt at all; it had nothing to do with him whose body this sword had once been stuck in. He was more concerned about the dead Fell Beast and the clothing that once belonged to the Nazgul—these two sentences.

"Details, I want to know the details, Radagast; I cannot analyze much useful information from such words."

Saruman's demeanor remained solemn, and his words were unhurried, as if he were just chatting about daily life with Radagast, only that his words carried a magic that bewitched people's hearts, revealing the inner restlessness of this White Wizard.

"Details, yes, details."

Radagast was completely unaware of Saruman's bewitchment; kind by nature, he had a strong immunity to this kind of bewitchment, yet simple in character, he quickly told the news Saruman wanted to know.

"A figure appearing from the void, a shrill scream, and a Human pierced through the chest by a longsword, and... and..."

"And what?"

Hearing this, Saruman had actually already obtained the intelligence he wanted, but he still felt a little curiosity about what Radagast would say next.

Radagast, who had been lost in memory, suddenly woke up and said in a panic: "Ah, nothing else."

Because what followed were all the feelings of the birds; after watching this battle, they were hungry and wanted to eat some insects with delicious meat juices, or plant seeds with excellent taste. Radagast knew he could not tell Saruman such things; if he did, it would inevitably be a storm-like reprimand. Facing the extremely imposing Saruman, Radagast was very nervous, and in past exchanges, he had also experienced the power of Saruman's tongue.

Saruman did not, as he used to, habitually express sarcasm at Radagast's incoherence, but said to the Brown Wizard with a grave expression: "Did you find anything like a ring in that pile of clothes?"

As he spoke, Saruman gripped his staff tightly; if Radagast had really obtained the thing he dreamed of from that pile of clothes, he would absolutely not mind using violence to snatch that ring with great power from his colleague's hands.

Even if that ring was just one of those gifted to Humans, and not Sauron's heart and soul.

"No, I didn't."

The Brown Wizard's timely answer made Saruman dispel the thought of taking action; he did not think that the silly Radagast had the ability to deceive him. It was just that after exchanging information, he unceremoniously drove away the colleague who had come from afar to find him, and then changed his clothes, did some disguising, and personally went to investigate Allen's forces.

Without the knowledge of the territory's master, Saruman, relying on words that could bewitch people's hearts, stayed in Wilderness Town and Long Lake Town for a long time, and then learned from the soldiers who had participated in that night's battle that the one who fought the Nazgul was their heroic and fearless lord, Allen, who held the title of Dragon Slayer.

In fact, after disguising himself, Saruman had tried to use his power to control Allen, but during that period, because of the recruitment of troops, Allen, who rarely went out, was in a fully armed state whenever he appeared in front of the residents, so under the protection of the helmet, Saruman's multiple probes all failed, and the busy Allen just regarded Saruman as an old man greeting him and instantly forgot about this matter.

Seeing that his ability had lost its effect, Saruman was a bit exasperated; he gathered his courage several times, wanting to use some underhanded means to threaten Allen into handing over the ring.

But soon, Saruman abandoned this idea; in his long observation, he felt a trace of somewhat familiar power from Allen, and this power made his soul tremble.

Subsequently, Saruman, with fear rising in his heart, did not dare to stay in Wilderness Town for long and slunk back to Orthanc, but having just begun to study the Rings of Power, he was also unwilling to easily give up the idea of wanting to obtain the Ring of Power, and that trace of power was also so weak that it soon allowed the White Wizard to overcome his inner fear.

As the leader of the White Council and recognized as knowing the most about the Rings of Power, Saruman ultimately chose to use his prestige to obtain this ring instead of relying on violence. If he had a choice, he would not want to do so; Saruman was unwilling to reveal even a little bit of news about the ring to the members of the White Council; after all, he was single-mindedly wanting to master the One Ring that once belonged to Sauron.

When Saruman had people pass the news that Allen possessed a master ring to the other members of the White Council, it still caused quite a stir in the hearts of the various bigwigs.

Thousands of years had passed, and such a thing had never happened before; there was actually someone who could snatch a ring from Sauron and his terrifying servants. In the past, whenever news related to the rings was heard, it was always Sauron forcibly taking back the rings he had gifted in the Second Age, while bringing extreme pain to the former holders in the process of taking them back.

Gandalf ended his leisurely life in Gondor; originally, he had thought about following the reinforcements promised by Turgon to go to Rhovanion together to assist Allen in defeating the Easterlings at that time, but this news directly broke his plan, forcing him to ride a galloping steed to rush to Orthanc to confirm this news.

Subsequently, the two wizards, who could not stand each other, traveled together to Lothlorien. In this process, they erupted into countless arguments over the issue of the ring in Allen's hand. Although Gandalf was not very willing to argue with the higher-status Saruman, in order to defend his friend, he still could not help but retort to Saruman a few times, making the White Wizard, who was already very unhappy because his plan had failed, feel even more miserable.

Lord Elrond, after receiving the news, immediately took a team of Elf soldiers and set off for Lothlorien; he had no thoughts about the ring that belonged to a Human.

Being able to make such a move was entirely out of concern for this Human who might be his "kin."

In fact, after passing through Rivendell during the last expedition, Elrond had some guesses about Allen's identity.

This Half-elven who had experienced countless sorrows and joys knew far more than ordinary people. After the sinking of Numenor, there were still some "Faithful" who did not leave with Elendil; for example, Elendil's father, Amandil, took three loyal servants and went to the West.

Elrond did not think that Allen could be related to Amandil, but in the process of Star Island sinking, a portion of Numenoreans who did not believe in Sauron were swept back to Middle-earth, and it was not impossible for them to find an opportunity to get rid of Sauron's control in the long years to come.

At the end of the Second Age, the blow Sauron received was truly too heavy, and he was dispirited for as long as two thousand years; in such a long time, many things could happen, such as Numenoreans who broke free from their shackles and returned from the East.

Of course, this was only Elrond's preliminary guess; after all, even Allen himself could not explain his origin clearly, and verifying certain conjectures would still require the help of time.

Cirdan, who had finally returned from the sea, arrived at Lothlorien after Elrond. Having personally given away "Narya," he felt a trace of doubt about this suddenly convened meeting; it was just a ring that once belonged to a Human, was it worth such a big fuss?

It was just that as a Teleri Elf who had witnessed countless years, Cirdan had humility and patience far exceeding ordinary people. Having just returned from an adventure, he did not mind meeting the Dragon Slayer whose fame had already spread to the Grey Havens.

Lady Galadriel was also unwilling to convene this meeting, but she had to consider Saruman's request carefully; after all, this White Wizard was nominally the leader of the White Council and had made many contributions to the cause of resisting darkness in the past years.

Moreover, Saruman indeed had knowledge of the twenty Rings of Power far exceeding others. In his letter to Galadriel, he stated firmly that if he could obtain the ring in Allen's hand, as long as there was sufficient time, he would have the opportunity to deduce the specific location of the One Ring, which was crucial for the White Council, which was single-mindedly resisting Sauron.

Of course, regardless of whether the meeting was held, Lady Galadriel and Lord Elrond, having received the news, would both send their own envoys to invite Allen to come to Caras Galadhon for a visit, and then try every means to make Allen give up that ring.

Regardless of what Allen's identity was, the career he had made in Rhovanion was of great significance to the White Council; if it were not for the fact that the lifespan of Humans was truly limited, Lady Galadriel had even had the thought of letting Allen join the White Council.

Therefore, they would never allow this newly risen Human lord to be lost under the power of that Ring, as this would severely weaken their own strength and add an even more powerful servant to their great enemy.

Having received the invitation, Allen knew that the fact he possessed a Ring of Power had been exposed.

At the same time, he could not refuse such an invitation; once refused, the bigwigs of the White Council appearing together in his territory would be a relatively minor consequence, while the arrival of an Elf army would be far more serious.

Regarding an ally about to fall into darkness, it was possible for the White Council to do anything extreme, for after all, a traitor is far more terrifying than an enemy.

After thinking it over, Allen told the Elf messenger that he would head to Lothlorien in one week to attend this meeting; in fact, from any perspective, agreeing was far more appropriate than refusing, as the greatest loss would merely be a Ring useless to him, and Allen did not believe these bigwigs would use a "bare-handed wolf-catching" tactic to forcibly take this Ring from his hands, as compensation would certainly be provided.

Just out of distrust for Saruman, Allen still urgently summoned some subordinates, not only including his main retainers and Elf personal guards, but he also brought along all four hundred troops of his Cavalry.

At the same time, he also invited Beorn and Grim to go with him to admire the beautiful scenery of Caras Galadhon, and of course, he also hoped they would help him deal with any potential enemies along the way.

If Saruman really brought his subordinates to ambush him, Allen was prepared to fight it out with this White Wizard.

However, he did not encounter a single enemy on this journey and arrived at the capital of Lothlorien, Caras Galadhon, with unusual smoothness; looking at the tall and beautiful mallorn trees, Allen knew he had overthought things.