We spoke until nightfall before Candaith stated that he would take first watch in order for me to get some rest. He told me to borrow one of the bedrolls in his tent and, when it was my turn to take watch, he would have the other. “It’s better for me to hunt in the night,” I tried to argue.
“They see much better in the dark than the light,” he countered. “They’re creatures of darkness and evil, Morchandir. It’s been bred into their blood and bone for generations. If you can hide and sneak around through them in the darkness effectively, then you’ll be a burglar of some renown, indeed.”
I had found Candaith to be a scholar and far too serious, much like the other Rangers that I had encountered thus far, but for this particular one, knowledge seemed to be both his calling and his bane. He reminded me of a pair of scholars who I had left in charge of my son leagues and leagues to the east and north from these Weather Hills. I found myself listening to Candaith and asking him questions about history and cultures long after I normally grew bored of such pursuits.
My sleep remained fitful less due to the ground, which I’d become accustomed to, and more because of my worries. When I woke to take second watch, I found myself sluggish. Sleep when you’re dead, I chastised myself silently. But let’s not go dying any time soon tonight.
The Ranger seemed more used to the smallish bouts of sleep than even I was as, when he woke near dawn, he seemed no less chipper and awake than before he’d fallen asleep the evening before. He busied himself with creating a bit of tea to go with the rations he had and outlined his plan of action. While I was out thinning the number of orcs that had moved into the area, he would scout around the base of Weathertop and then out to Midgewater Pass for signs of Radagast. If I made it back before him, which seemed highly likely, I was to keep the horses quiet and make sure that the camp remained unseen by anyone or anything passing by.
I had never encountered an orc before. They stayed away from the trading routes we took, or perhaps we took the routes they didn’t want to risk confrontations on, but I knew of them. The other guards and merchants often spoke of their own stories, never personal and always friend of a friend, with details that made them seem ten feet tall and immortal. Warriors of Sauron, they claimed, hard to kill and so hideous they put a mortal fear into you so you wanted to run.
I had met something like that since then, though, and it wasn’t an orc. No, it had been far worse.
Candaith left when I did to head in another direction. It took him very little time to vanish as I watched from afar. He knows what he’s doing, I approved silently before doing the same. He didn’t put me off of him immediately as Strider had done, nor had he seemed as stern and reserved as Saeradan; instead, I had quickly found him more personable and likeable. These thoughts entertained me right up until I found the first orc.
It could be nothing other than an orc, despite the mismatch between what I had been told of it in the past and the reality – and the reality seemed far worse in some way. Part of me wanted to pity the thing as I watched it patrolling a route I had yet to discern. Armored, armed, it stood less than my height but had a build far heavier and more muscular. It walked slumped over slightly and hulking, plodding even, with an air of complete ignorance for its own safety. Arrogance, perhaps, or even hatred for what it saw around it. Everything from its jutting teeth to its unnatural skin tone spoke of ages spent with its bloodline being twisted until nothing could be recognized of what it might once have been. This is Sauron’s hand in the world, I realized with startling clarity. Everything from the dead to the living warps into terrible things. Nothing natural and good could have been born this way. I didn’t want to think about how orcs and other things like it might have been produced.
Scarred, hideous, and – as I noticed it staring blankly at a hare bounding away from it fearfully – possibly completely stupid, I forced down the slight shudder that moved through me at the thought of having to contact the creature. A shift in the wind brought the reek of it to me and I shook my head once sharply. Was this what Sauron would have us become?
I moved out of my hiding place and ended its life with a well-thrown dagger into the space between its collar and the end of its head. It flailed a moment as everything inside it seemed to panic at once before it dropped to the ground, twitching, as it died. I waited for it to go still and glassy eyed before warily retrieving my weapon. I had to clean it with a cloth after and swore that I would burn it once I had finished my mission for the Ranger. The stains and stench would never come out of it, I was sure.
Some of the orcs I killed carried bows while others had melee weapons. A few spotted me and fought like savage, rabid animals before I dispatched them. The archers were stringy and tall with lighter armor than the melee classes carrying their clubs and axes and such. I headed back to Candaith’s camp once I couldn’t find more than the handful wandering on their own.
He arrived an hour after me looking troubled and grim. Or, at least, grimmer than he had when he left. “There are fourteen less orcs to worry with out there,” I greeted him. “It’s not much, but I hope that it helps at least a little.”
He settled by the dormant firepit. “I thank you, Morchandir, but my thanks are tempered with concern; I have never seen a force of Orcs like this in Eriador before today: organized and well-provisioned. They hold an encampment in an outlet within the Midgewater Pass and bear a strange charge on their banners and shields… one that I have not seen before.”
I shook my head. “Wouldn’t they have hundreds of… groups?” I squinted. “Tribes? Families? What do you call these types of gatherings for orcs?”
“Tribes,” Candaith replied. “There are several, but they’re fairly long-standing. Ongbúrz, Tarkrîp, Krahjarn… those are three of the most powerful, along with the Blogmal, though they’re very small. The Krahjarn are the most powerful. I doubt you’d see them outside of Angmar, in fact.” He laced his fingers together around a knee before leaning back in thought. “I know their standards and several that are lesser. This one, however…” He shook his head. “Either it is a very new tribe or one that has escaped our notice in some remote area until now, though for it to be here in the Lone-lands means it must have received marching orders some time ago. I have no idea why my brethren have yet to send word along its path of its approach if that is the case. They don’t have the look of Mordor orcs, either”
My confusion grew. “There’s a difference?” I motioned toward the wilds of the hills. “How can you tell? They’re all horrendous.”
He chuckled humorlessly. “That they are, Morchandir, my friend. However, the closer one gets to Mordor and Sauron, the more twisted and unnatural things become. Wargs become larger and more ferocious. Animals twist around to become something larger and eviler than their normal kin. Goblins and orcs are the same.” He waved a hand. “They’re different by tribe as well and that may be more pertinent to identification.” He fell silent once more. “The tribe at this encampment in the Midgewater Pass, however, is unlike any of the orcs I have seen or read about. It troubles me greatly.”
My lips pressed together. “Would Radagast know anything about them, you think?” I asked. I didn’t feel confident that he would. He seemed too interested in the natural world. Though are orcs now part of the natural world, as long as they seem to have been around? I wondered privately.
Candaith had moved on, however. “That might be.” He gathered his thoughts again. “Their numbers at this camp are great but the day may come when we can drive them howling from the Lone-lands. Not today, I fear, but perhaps not far off.” His fingers unlaced from around his knee. “There is another matter that demands our attention, an urgent matter; we will see to the destruction of their camp in the Midgewater Pass later.”
Oh no, I sighed. Here it comes. Part of me had expected more to be asked of me in this venture, especially given the problems in these lands that I had been sent to help unravel; however, I had been hoping that it might become more streamlined once away from Bree. Not as many people seemed to live in this area to need my help.
“As I began my search for Radagast, near the Midgewater Pass,” Candaith explained, “I witnessed an Orc-messenger depart in great haste.” That would make sense if there’s an entire unknown tribe camping there, I nearly told him. “Quickly, I followed, trailing him eastwards along the shoulder of the hills and then south, but my search was interrupted. I could follow no further, for foul crebain circled above, and to be discovered would do greater injury to our work here than I can permit.”
“Bloody birds,” I growled with a roll of my eyes. “Where do you think this messenger is going?”
He shrugged slightly. “That, I have no real idea about, yet. Rather, not the exact location.” He puffed out a little sigh. “Once again, I must call upon your aid.” He seemed guilty about having to ask. I suddenly wasn’t sure I liked that idea – did he not feel I was up to the challenge? Or was it simply he didn’t want anyone put in danger? “The messenger likely carries with him orders to the outlying camps. If you can intercept the messenger, we may learn the nature of these orders. So armed, we will be better equipped to deal with the Orc-threat.” He rose and pointed. “Search among the Orc-camps in Glumhallow, to the west, and return to me with the orders this messenger surely possesses. I will seek sign of Radagast’s passage elsewhere.” He dropped his arm. “We must know the full scope of this invasion, Morchandir.”
I got to my feet with a stretch that cracked my tendons pleasantly. “And here I thought I would have a few more hours to rest,” I grumbled. “I’m going to enjoy punching this messenger in the face.”
The Ranger laughed slightly. “Most of us do when it’s one of the Enemy’s minions.”
We traveled up the high slope and around to the north a ways before halting. He let me physically see the route he took with the messenger and where Glumhallow and the other camps sat in comparison so that I could understand the lay of the land a little better. “The orc is dressed in black armor,” he explained to me. “You can’t miss him when you see him.” I nodded and set off in the opposite direction of him. I hadn’t traveled long before I came across more orcs and dispatched them as quickly as I could.
Candaith was right, however, when he said that I wouldn’t be able to overlook this messenger. Tall and not as bulky as some of the orc fighters I had killed, yet not as long and thin as the archers, the creature moved with the sure gait of one who had a mission to accomplish and didn’t care about the state of its environment. With nothing really around in the Lone-lands, I could understand how it had no real desire or need to conceal itself. Candaith had named it “he” and I had to wonder, as I stalked my prey, what exactly female orcs looked like. Surely, there were some. How would new orcs come into being? Goblins? Other monstrosities? The hills around me made it difficult to get ahead of the armored figure without a great deal of huffing and puffing and panting on my part. I needed an ambush if I meant to win. That he was on foot, too, meant that the missive was wither unimportant or the orcs had little enough reason to learn how to ride horses over eating them.
I managed to get ahead of him in his path along the bottom of a raised area with a series of boulders and scrub trees atop it. While I caught my breath, I looked at the path he would take to come around it and judged my distance accordingly. I could drop onto him from above. He held an axe of some fashion, one of efficient if crude make that I could only feel was orcish in nature, but it was his armor that had my most interest. As he neared enough for me to study it briefly, I pulled my knives out swift and silent. Chainmail, I grunted internally. Bloody chainmail. At least the stupid thing had left his neck, elbows, and most of his legs bared.
I waited for him to pass just far enough before I dropped down behind him. One long knife swept up and in toward his underarm on the left while the other came from behind to slit his thick, sinewy throat. The stench-filled air suddenly included a low grunt before the orc turned and knocked me flying with one mailed fist before I could complete the slash to its jugular. I fell into the ridge wall and felt the dirt and loose rocks as they tumbled down around me. Stunned, it took me a moment to blink before I could move.
The messenger bellowed at me far weaker than it might without having one lung punctured. It lunged for me with its axe upraised and brought it down as I managed to collect myself enough to roll away. I grabbed up one of my fallen knives, given they had dropped from my nerveless fingers upon impact with the ridge, and slashed down at one of the orc’s hamstrings. I had to keep moving, though. My opponent most surely did, even after losing the use of one of his legs. With a bellow of rage, he turned and ripped the axe free of the earthen prison holding it in order to swing at me with both arms. He missed his mark given his leg couldn’t hold him any longer, and he staggered for balance. I kicked at the remaining leg’s knee to break it and found myself rewarded with a crunching noise that heralded the orc’s body collapsing to the ground.
It coughed out blood at last and slashed at me with the axe. Ground them and they become helpless, that’s what I had been taught and had learned through practice. That wasn’t against orcs, though, but rather against Men. Orcs, it seemed, were far tougher than the average warrior. This one had a ruptured lung, internal bleeding, a slice that had nearly severed the artery in its throat, and no useable legs. Instead of yielding, the armored creature got to both useless knees as if it felt no pain and tried to rise again, slashing at me when I moved in close enough to attempt another strike, causing me to dance back. It snarled with bloody bubbles coming from its lips and hatred seething from its barely seen gaze beneath the helm. Testing how well it could swivel from its position, I darted to the right and then abruptly moved left around it instead in a pair of long, striding bounds.
It had no way to follow me. All of its weight sat on its broken knee and the hamstrung side had no way to push it around. Before it could do more than swing at me from where it had its torso twisted, given the idea of falling to its back might occur to it, I had enough pity to affect a coup de grâce. I leaped back and waited for it to be dead before approaching it, still wary, to examine the corpse. I wrinkled my nose and tried to breathe through my mouth as my gloved hands went over its belt pouch to pull out whatever it had within, paper included, but I found a surprising amount of valuable items that I could sell later as well. Gems, trinkets, little things. The axe had no value except for its metal, and even then, I wasn’t so sure. The mail, however… even decorated with the white paint that smeared it, both helm and shirt might be worth something to an armorer or metalsmith. With another good look around after tucking my newfound gains away, I wrestled the pieces off the heavy orc’s form, wrapped them together with some leather thongs I carried with me, and set back off toward Candaith’s encampment with the faint sounds of clanking that accompanied the other metallic bits contacting one another and myself.
He heard me coming, this time, given he’d arrived first. Emerging from the trees, he sucked on his teeth slightly and greeted me with, “This may be a liability for us until you leave, Morchandir. That noise can be followed.”
“Not if I leave it here until I’m ready to depart,” I replied immediately. “It deprives them of some protection and will fetch me some money once I’m in a settlement.” I moved toward Neeker to secure it to him.
Candaith held up a hand to halt me. “One moment. May I see it?” I cast him a strange look before shrugging the armor off my shoulders and settling them gently on the ground. He took up the mailed shirt and unbound it to spread it out on the ground. After a moment of adjusting it, flipping it over, and resettling it, he frowned down at it and pointed at the white hand mark dripping along the front. “This, you see? This is what I mentioned before about being unknown.” He tapped some of the links. “They may have stolen this armor from some poor soul along the way. Orc craftsmanship isn’t this intricate and good, nor do they have access to the proper tools and resources even if it were.” He fingered the metallic rings before dropping them with a soft metallic noise. “Each tribe has its own image or sigil, like an iron crown on a field of dark blue or black. That’s the Ongbúrz from Angmar.” He looked up at me. “This isn’t from any banner I know of, large tribe or small, and yet it’s here in the Lone-lands. Orcs are here in the Lone-lands.” He set a fist on the upraised knee he still had while crouching next to the armor. I could sense the frustration coming from him almost tangibly.
He seemed worse off than when he had left me earlier and I took a good look at him for the first time. Something seemed to be missing from him and I didn’t know what. “Would it help to know that this came from the messenger and that I have the orders you sent me after?” I asked, hoping to cheer him even slightly.
He sighed and rose to his feet. “It would, at least a little.” I fished out the paper for him and he took it before turning to the campfire site. I rolled up the shirt noisily and tied it up again before moving off to get things set on Neeker.
I hadn’t even secured everything properly before I heard his low cursing. I didn’t ask him about it until I had everything finished and had returned to the campfire site myself. “The news isn’t good, I see,” I offered drolly.
“I can’t tell from what’s written, but I can in how.” He waved the papers. “These orders are written in the Black Speech, Morchandir, a tongue I have never desired to learn.”
“Black Speech?” I asked blankly. “I’ve never heard of it.”
“The tongue of Mordor. Of Sauron,” he replied grimly. “He created it to use as a common language for his servants long, long ago. It is said that he even inscribed it upon the Ring he created that ended the Second Age. Not many know of it, even among his followers, today. That it has shown up here…” He shook his head. “I should have prepared for this, but I hoped that we would learn something useful immediately.”
“If it’s not used that much, you couldn’t have foreseen it,” I pointed out. “Why did you never learn it?”
“It’s unpleasant to those of us who are Free Folk.” He shuddered slightly. “Simply listening to it spoken by another, even the Elves, can make one feel the darkness inherent. I had no wish to taint my mind and my dreams with that knowledge.” He took a breath and released it slowly. “While you were seeking these orders, I followed signs of Radagast through the hills. I was not far along in this pursuit as a patrol of Orcs soon happened upon my location!”
I nodded slowly. “Ahh. So that’s why you beat me back here. I had expected to arrive first, again.”
He pressed his lips together. “No. But this is part of my current dismay. I was forced to break off my pursuit, and I lost my bow as I evaded the Orcs beneath the eaves of the wood.” That’s it, I realized. It’s his bow. He doesn’t have one and did when we parted earlier. “It was a close thing, Morchandir.” His tone turned thoughtful. “A close encounter that yielded insight into the Orc’s leadership.”
I grunted. “Given how tough the messenger was to keep down, I can only imagine what facing several at once might be like. The orcs I killed earlier for you were far easier to put down than that one.”
“Given he had on the armor,” Candaith offered, “it’s a sure bet he had some rank or skills that the archers and warriors didn’t. They would give the better armor to those with more respect. The others that we’ve seen have rudimentary pieces here and there rather than all of what you brought back.” He half-smiled at me. “You did well, for your part, and soon we will understand the intentions of these Orcs as well as their leadership.” The smile faded. “I only wish I had been able to keep up my end of the bargain.”
I hesitated for a moment. “You’re a Ranger,” I said hesitantly. “Why couldn’t you face them and destroy them? You seem to know more about them than I do and have more skills in that vein.”
He chuckled without humor. “That is debatable. However, what I said about their leadership is the real reason.” His eyes narrowed. “‘I would have easily evaded the Orcs I pursued, Morchandir, were it not for the War-master that travelled with them. “Uzorr,” they called him and gave to him what respect that their kind reserve for their strongest and fiercest warriors.” He ran his teeth over his lower lip. “It is likely that Uzorr returned to Bleakrift within the Midgewater Pass, for that seemed to be his domain. He must be slain, and whatever orders were given him recovered.”
“Good luck,” I began to reply. I stopped when I saw his bemused expression. “Right. I’m up, again, aren’t I?”
“Bleakrift is north-west of here, on the north-eastern edge of the Midgewater Pass, surrounded by a shallow body of water,” Candaith said with a vague smile. “Defeat War-master Uzorr and look for a letter of some kind near his person. Return to me victorious and we will discuss further what must be done.” He rose to his feet. “Bleakrift is likely to be a dangerous place, Morchandir, be careful. I will continue my search for Radagast.”
Well, that’s nice to know, I thought with a grimace. I would hate to think I have to put myself in grave danger doing all of this while you sit here unable to find Radagast like you said. “Dangerous, yes. Especially for someone who had trouble with a messenger orc.”
Candaith shook his head. “You’re a burglar, my friend. You can manage to make it inside and then out again quickly and quietly if you choose. Never think that you’re not helping more than myself with these things. If you’re searching for Radagast, your importance cannot be underestimated.” Maybe not, but I’d like for it to be underestimated for maybe an hour while I have a nap and some food, I groused silently. Perhaps sensing my weariness, he smirked and motioned at Neeker. “Grab food and drink if you want. I’m going to start off. Stay cautious, friend.”
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