"Some of both. Orcs usually die of thirst, or exhaustion if they try to haul enough water with them; men of thirst or heat exhaustion or both. There's no cover, either, and Mordor has flying creatures in its service - more of a problem for land armies than dragons, admittedly."

"Not especially useful, then, even with magical aid. That there are so few approaches is vexing. And forcing a new one would be slow, and attract too much attention."

"Intentionally so. I don't think Sauron made Mordor, but he chose it carefully, and it's been his stronghold on and off for millennia."

"Intelligent enemies are a pain."

"It'd be so much better if they took themselves out in their incompetence?"

"Much less work."

"Might be entertaining, too."

"Of course, if I were so lucky, events would not have come to our present circumstances."

"Of course. Does leave you with an interesting problem, though."

"I have more than enough of those to be going on with."

"I suppose."

"These flying creatures Mordor employs. Tell me about them."

The dangerous ones often serve as alternative mounts for the wraiths, though Sauron has been holding those in reserve - partially because getting any animal to not throw a wraith is difficult. Those have a loosely draconic body plan, but no hard scales nor inner fire nor intelligence. Still, they're fierce, large, and recklessly brave.

There's aerial spies, too. Black birds, mostly, in a variety of shapes. The subtle ones resemble natural birds.

And which of the mortal kingdoms is he most wary of?

Gondor, right now. It's on his doorstep, the capitol of Minas Tirith is a famously well guarded citadel, and the Stewards are usually cunning men. The ancestors of Gondor dealt Sauron one of his more humiliating defeats in the Second Age, and if someone with a claim to Gondor's throne showed up, he could possibly unite the local Men into a new Alliance.

She doesn't exactly have one of those in her pocket, but that seems the place to recruit from anyway.

"Given enough politicking the Men can make an Alliance without, I bet. But as far as I can tell Sauron thinks in a way very centered on a single, controlling authority making all of a group's decisions - admittedly mostly going by how he responds to spontaneous revolt."

"That at least makes him the single point of failure for his own forces. And it is likely that he in turn will have a single lynchpin to his power."

"There's rumors that there is, yeah, but no one's really sure what."

"If anyone was, doubtless it would be exploited already."

"Or anyone who guesses correctly would be exceptionally dead."

"Or that, depending on the balance of competencies."

"Sauron's more competent than most of his underlings. By design, largely."

"That is terrible practice."

She laughs. "It keeps the revolutions down, but, then again, he's also inspiring repeated revolutions."