Nine Servants

The Nine Servants began life as Men, born in Middle-earth during the Second Age. We know little about their origins, except that three of them were Númenórean lords, and that at least one (Khamûl, the only named Servant) was an Easterling. They were each granted a Ring of Power by Sauron, who had captured many such Rings in his conquest of Eregion in II 1697. Men were always the readiest of peoples to turn to Sauron's will, and through the Nine Rings he drew the Nine into the wraith-world and enslaved their wills.

Thus these nine Men became the Nazgûl or Ringwraiths, whose mortal lives were stretched by their Nine Rings so that they would live on for millennia, bound to the will of the Dark Lord. They were led by one of their number, titled the Lord of the Nazgûl, and were first seen in Middle-earth in about the year II 2250, in a time when the Númenóreans were building fortresses and sea-ports in Middle-earth. The Ringwraiths led assaults against these places, challenging the power of the Men from over the Sea.

After their master's defeat in the War of the Last Alliance, the Nine Servants retreated from the Westlands into his old domains in the East. A thousand years passed, but at last the Dark Lord began to grow in power once again. Before long the Nazgûl returned to serve him, and their chief, the Lord of the Nazgûl, was sent into the North. There he became the Witch-king of Angmar, threatening the borders of a disunited Arnor and eventually destroying the last remnant of the North-kingdom of the Dúnedain.

Despite his victory, the Witch-king was driven out of the North, and rejoined the other Nazgûl in Mordor. They did not remain quiet for long, and in III 2000, just twenty years after their Lord's return, they emerged from the Black Land to besiege the Gondorian tower of Minas Ithil on their western borders. That siege lasted for two years, but the Nine Servants eventually took the tower. From that time it became known as Minas Morgul, the tower of dark sorcery, and it would be held by the Ringwraiths until the end of the Third Age.

The Nine Servants in their new stronghold would soon engineer the downfall of the Kingship of Gondor: they lured King Eärnur into Minas Morgul with a false challenge, and he was never seen again. Eärnur left no heir, and the Kingship came to an end, giving way to the Ruling Stewards. Afterward the Dark Lord - who at this time was dwelling in disguise at Dol Guldur - departed into the East. The ensuing Watchful Peace would last for nearly four centuries, and with their master gone, his Nine Servants made no further assaults against Gondor.

When Sauron returned, he brought new forces to Dol Guldur, but his Nine Servants remained in Minas Morgul as a silent threat on the borders of Gondor. Five further centuries passed, and the Third Age neared its end, when Sauron abandoned Dol Guldur and returned to Mordor, which the Nazgûl had prepared for his return. Now the Dark Lord ruled from his Dark Tower as he had long ago, and the Fire-mountain of Orodruin once again burst into flame.

In the years that followed, Sauron discovered that his lost Ring had been found by one named 'Baggins' from the Shire, and to recover it he sent out his Nine Servants in the form of Black Riders. In this quest they ultimately failed, but they nonetheless played a great part in the War of the Ring that followed. Their leader, the former Witch-king, was slain in the Battle of the Pelennor Fields, and the other eight servants were destroyed in the convulsions of Mount Doom after the Ring's destruction. Thus after more than four thousand years of life - life that had been extended by their Nine Rings - the threat of the Nine Servants came to a fiery end.