[hider=Saptheth, the Golden Serpent]
The mercenary called Saptheth was not born from the lines of Gondor or Rohan, or indeed of any such Westron nation. His is the lineage of the Easterlings, of the lands called Rhûn by the elves, and in particular of the nation of Balchoth, which at the date of his birth (TA 2484 by Westron measurements) was one of the strongest of those lands to the East in both war and politics, savage and pseudo-primitive as they were, and growing stronger by the year. Thus was he blessed, as those of his race typically were, with olive skin the envy of many other Eastrons with more sallow complexions, eyes darker than coal that revealed nothing of his soul to those who might seek to gain information by gazing into them, similarly dark hair of straight growth, in Saptheth's case most often grown out and cut to below his shoulderblades during his adulthood in emulation of an older style from centuries back, and ultimately a tall figure that was subsequently layered with muscle in a manner that little else than training as a soldier can provide.

Yet at the same stroke, his blood was cursed by his lineage, for the Balchoth race had long been in thrall to the mysterious necromantic master of Dol Guldur in the Mirkwood, a trait that would bring him and many others of his country to invade Gondor by the year TA 2510. Though all of the Balchothi, man and woman alike, were drafted as soldiers for several years at the age of twenty one, most would soon return to their respective positions as dictated by the social caste of their birth, be it as lowly as the labourers and farmers, as middling as the artisans or merchants, or as high-up as the priests and teachers of the nation's faith; Saptheth's family were specifically a part of the nation's second-highest caste, that of the rulership and military both, and as such he was for the duration of his childhood drilled in what would be expected of him as a soldier, then integrated into the Balchoth military at the age of fifteen, when the rites of passage from boy to man were bestowed upon him in addition to his new responsibilities. Full training as one of Balchoth's elite fighters and leaders took another six or seven years - when the basic troops of many Eastlands were themselves trained to be more than a match for most Westron knights, and in a formation of shieldbearers, chariots or kataphrakts could decimate substantially larger knight battalions, a high-class Easterling fighter was both a long-term investment who required much input and forging, and an extremely valuable asset to their armies.

The year TA 2505 came and went, and by its end Saptheth had been granted the full honours that came with leadership over his fellow men. This would grant him his usual dress and equipment for much of the seven years to come - his clothing was loose red and black wool designed to cover most of his body and insulate it from the Eastlands' daytime heat and occasional abrasive sandstorms, over the top of which lay stylised bronze plate engraved in multiple locations with the image of a rising sun, complete with a crested full helm designed to invoke the image of a dragon, a design not too dissimilar from the armour of various other Easterling nations both before and since; his weaponry and equipment included a wood-and-bronze shield with a similar solar design to his armour on its front, two halberd-like pikes of five and nine feet in length for the purposes of anti-infantry battles and porcupine or phalanx formations respectively, a three foot steel scimitar as effective as any Westron sword and particularly well-suited for mounted attacks, and a composite recurve bow that any Easterling archer could aim and fire with unique skill, in time proving more accurate even than Rohan's horse archers for their techniques. All of this was supplemented not by the usual chariot of a Balchothi, but a heavily-armoured horse of Saptheth's own, that he might ride ahead of his troops as a kataphrackt and inspire the bulkier horse-drawn chariots and wagons to crush all opposition beneath their wheels and hooves.

Yet even at the earliest dawn of his captaincy, he had begun noticing the increasing rate at which Balchoth was gathering its troops, and the fact that many of those drafted soldiers who ought to have returned to their rightful positions by that time were instead being kept in ranks, and trained ever harder, and sent into battle against their fellow people to gather the peoples of other lands as their slaves for those lesser positions which suffered for lack of manpower, as fewer and fewer native Balchothi were left to plow the fields and labour for their betters. In secret, he wondered what, if anything, might be prompting this recruitment drive: a full-blown war, certainly, but would skirmishes against the other Easterlings escalate until all of Rhûn was subjugate to a newly-forged Balchothi Empire, or would this force be turned against the West to try and eliminate the supposedly-free peoples of Endor?

As it transpired, the latter turned out to be true: by the year TA 2510, Saptheth had acquired many ranks over his original position of leadership, and it was from this posting that he led quite a substantial portion of Balchoth's forces against the nation of Gondor at the behest of Dol Guldur. Yet it would happen that this was not the grand takeover of Endor by its future Eastron masters, but merely the latest, albeit one of the last in the Third Age, in a series of attempts to defeat the Free Peoples for their dark master. Some might have proposed after the fact that it would have been better for Balchoth to head East instead, and expand their power before attempting Gondor's subjugation, but all knew that the Dark Lord's word was not to be disobeyed; as it was, the Balchothi chariots succeeded in destroying the realm of Rhovanion entirely, eliminating it as far as civilisation went, but were halted in the Gondorian land of Calenardhon by a force of soldiers from Gondor and Éothéod both, the latter in particular surprising the Balchoth's forces with riders and archers alike partway through the skirmish. In fact, the Battle of the Field of Celebrant would prove to be the race of Balchoth's undoing, for they were forced back into Rhovanion after their orcish complement was destroyed, and then again were pursued far into their own lands, the Westron knights proving more than willing to end the lives of Balchoth's civilian population; trained as they were, a civilian is no match for a fully-armed knight.

And at some point in this heedless retreat, Saptheth became unreasonably incensed with a great deal of things. It was customary that commanding officers below a certain rank, Saptheth's included, be executed by their superiors should they fail in battle and be forced to retreat, and though some such officers chose to break tradition, Saptheth was quite sure his would not, despite a perceived lack of fault by his own examination. And it seemed this failure, which had so quickly seemed to transform into an extinction event for the Balchothi, was greatly the fault of the magician of Dol Guldur, for who else had made this race of men march toward Endor, into a battle that they lost for reasons that were perhaps those of their incompetent orcish allies? And then again, how many Balchothi draftsmen had failed in their duty, who despite outnumbering the Westron knights in that instance had once again failed as Easterlings to capture any significant portion of Endor, and in this case ultimately doomed themselves? And so on and so forth did these negative thoughts pass through his mind repeatedly, until all of a sudden his rage boiled over, and he determined that his doom would not be that of the rest of Balchoth. With not as much as a farewell to his friends and allies in the unit, he deserted his people in the dead of night on the back of his stallion, maneuvered his way around the advancing forces of Gondor, and fled back to the lands of Rhovanion and ultimately Gondor, leaving his own to whatever fate might hold in store for them. For this treachery, his name would be cursed by those few Balchothi who were not slaughtered, until it was all but forgotten as the sands of time erased the remnants of his former people, their blood folded into the other Easterling nations thinner and thinner, until it was as though it had never been introduced at all.

Naturally, even the mere presence of an Easterling would be taken very poorly by any well-meaning Westron, so Saptheth took it upon himself to "acquire" a suitably bulky disguise from a passing traveller for his horse as well as himself, and then proceeded to partake in mercenary work for the next couple of years. Not because he liked the Westrons, not at all, for in his mind they were heathens and scoundrels who did everything in the wrong fashion, be it farming or fighting, and deserved little more than to grovel at the feet of his people; it just happened that he needed Endor's money to buy Endorian goods and services, in exchange providing his own combat talents to slay those who needed slaying. Indeed, skilled as he was, tales soon began spreading throughout Gondor and the surrounding lands of an Easterling who descended upon his foes in a torrent of gleaming death, and vanished like a snake in the sand (since, naturally, an Easterling caught in the act of murder would be killed very shortly afterward); this was oft misinterpreted by uneducated peasantfolk as meaning he was literally a giant snake made of metal, and with the colour of his armour, he had gained the epithet of "The Golden Serpent" by Autumn of TA 2511.

However, all the reputation in the world cannot prove itself as a shield against those who really want you dead: in TA 2512, Saptheth was given a task that, even with a certain amount of preparation just in case, proved itself an insurmountable ambush instead. His horse, loyal to the end, was shot out from beneath him as he attempted to escape, and though he played dead just long enough to turn his axe and scimitar upon his foes, felling a great many of those who would have killed him if less time had passed, he was ultimately captured, and returned to Minas Tirith, there to be held sans armour and weaponry until such time as he would be executed. And yet his earlier rejection of his fate had not seemed to anger samesaid fate unduly, or else it still saw fit to push him further and see whether he'd end up in a better place than he had earned for himself at the time: the day before his planned execution, a message from very high up came to Minas Tirith, asking that "the Golden Serpent who hails from across the Sea of Rhûn be escorted to Aldburg, there to function in service of the Kingdom of Rohan until further notice." Though his captors saw issue with this request, and Saptheth certainly had no desire to actively work for his sworn enemies, he was ultimately chained up tight, weapons and all, and transported by horse and cart to the town in question, there to be returned his equipment and kept on a leash as tight as a noose. If fate did favour him after all, he noted, it had a funny way of showing that this was the case.
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