A Burg’s Tale: Chapter 18

Things swirled around in my head as if I had fallen deep underwater. I could barely hear voices and had no real sense of up and down. Everything seemed as if it had slowed down somehow. I felt burning and pain at my throat but no pressure any longer. My surroundings were deep and dark as a cavern, and much like one, I couldn’t find my way out. For that matter, I had no idea where I was nor what it was that I’d been doing. It must have been something important, though. Was I stealing something important? Was it an assassination?

The impression of a child flitted through my head and left sparks in its wake. My son, I realized. Something about my son! I felt galvanized by the realization; had something happened to him? Had I been on my way to help him? No, I soothed myself. But something about him…

The little sparks, however, had begun igniting the rest of my brain. I wasn’t in a cave. I was unconscious. The fact I could reason this well meant that I wouldn’t be for much longer, either. Why had I fallen into this state? A mental fire erupted from somewhere and sent me memories without warning: orcs, lots of them, and a helmed one raging as his remaining hand tightened itself around my throat…

“Oh, baby, wake up! Gammer is so worried!” I heard a woman plead from somewhere.

Gammer? I wondered, the vision of the orc replaced by utter confusion. Oh, right. I don’t have a grandmother. I don’t even have a mother and father. I had to have heard this woman wrong or it was my own mind playing with me.

“That bad ol’ orc won’t hurt you again, don’t be afraid,” she continued.

She was real. I felt as if I were surfacing. The darkness lightened, browned, and my eyes rolled open woozily. It hurt to breathe. My throat felt as if it had caught fire. I coughed once, then again, and the explosive pain had me grimacing and lifting a hand toward my neck.

“Ah, thank Eru!” said a woman’s voice from close by. “I thought I’d come too late, my little sweetmeat.” I felt a hard opening press against my lips. I grabbed at it and felt the soft exterior of a water pouch. “Drink slowly. Here, let me help you.” Hands lifted my head to help me as I took a mouthful. And then choked, coughed, and tried again. “Tut! Slowly, my love, slowly,” she cooed, and I felt a worn hand clasp mine to help me steady the skin. The next swallow went much smoother.

Once I was done, I cleared my throat with another cough and tried to focus on the world around me once again. “What happened?” I rasped out. “I was… I was…” I stopped. “What was I doing, again?”

She patted my cheek and then I heard the water skin being capped once more. “You were fighting a large orc, my dear. It’s a good thing your Gammer Dandelion got here when she did!” She chuckled. “What were you doing up here all this way from Bree, anyway, silly boy?”

I finally squinted up toward her face. Orc. Fighting. He strangled me. Away from Bree… It hit me without warning, and I grimaced as the weight of responsibility resettled on my chest and shoulders once more. Then I had another good look at Gammer Dandelion. She had on piecemeal armor that had seen better days and looked to be older. Grey hair flitted from beneath her slightly oversized helm but so did a subtly lined face and a warm, generous smile from cherubic cheeks. I stared at her for a long moment, uncomprehending, before asking, “Who are you, again?”

She clucked her tongue and brushed my hair from my forehead. Only then did I realize that my mask had been pulled free. “I see your memory isn’t the best,” she chided me mildly. “Probably because you got strangled near to death! I’m your grandmother, Dandelion Digweed.” She patted my cheek lightly. “You’ll remember. Now, let’s get you up again.”

I blinked at her as she began to push my head and then my shoulders up. I finally set my hands on the ground to help without response and took a moment or two to look around at Bleakrift. It was eerily quiet, now, as if nothing but nature itself had finally decided to settle in its crevices and cracks. I looked around for my mask, took it in hand, and then carefully got to my feet. Only then did I tell her, “Miss Dandelion, my name is Morchandir. I can’t be your grandson. I don’t even have parents.” I dusted the mask off on my thigh before patting the dirt and such off of my bottom and back as best I could.

She helped me with my back and legs and replied in outrage, “You have parents! My daughter is your mother!” She calmed as I turned to face her at last. “Though I don’t think you remember her, either, at this point.”

I opened my mouth as I shifted, only to find nobody behind me. It was still open when I looked down and found myself facing a hobbit woman. So that’s where I remember that name from, I told myself. Gammer. Gaffer. The hobbits used them. I had to carefully close my mouth at that point for fear it would stay hanging open in surprise. Clearing my throat again, I offered, “No offense, Dandelion-“

“Gammer,” she corrected, crossing her arms at her chest and glaring up at me. “You may have grown up tall, but you’re not too tall to switch, young man!”

My brows lifted. This hobbit was well and truly demented. “… Gammer,” I corrected slowly. “No offense, Gammer, but I can’t be your grandson. You’re a hobbit. I’m not.”

She snorted and waved that away. “You’ve taken one too many knocks on the noggin, my boy,” she told me as she moved to collect a shield that had been placed nearby. “You’re as much of a hobbit as me, even if I did manage to birth some tall ones.” She sighed wistfully. “Been such a long time since your Gaffer died, though. I bet you’d know him from anywhere!”

I had no idea how to respond. Tucking my mask into my belt for the moment, I had another look around. “Errr. Sure.” I then checked my pockets and found the orc letters were still safe and sound. Relaxing, I asked her, “Dan… Gammer.” No sense in riling her up until she does try to switch me with a branch, I reasoned. “How did you manage to get up here? There were so many orcs.”

“Were,” she replied proudly. “All those stories about your Gammer were true, my boy!” She settled the shield on her arm. “I might not be as spry as I used to be, but I’m still more than a match for these dark things. But you never did tell me why you were all the way out here.”

I ran my fingers back through my hair to straighten it and get any lingering twigs and dirt out of the back. “I was helping a Ranger,” I said after a moment. She thought I was a tall hobbit; how much would it hurt to actually tell her what I was doing, anyway? “Candaith is his name. He’s looking for where Radagast the Brown traveled through here so that I can find him and speak with him. Gandalf asked me to do so in Bree before he left. I’m supposed to help him, and help Radagast, with some troubles out this way. I just have no idea where Radagast went, so I’ve been sent to Candaith to help me find him.”

She peered up at me with a wrinkled brow and concern in her eyes. “Oh, love. So much on your shoulders,” she said as she reached for one of my hands to clasp it tightly. “So young!  Why didn’t you come talk to your ol’ Gammer before you left Bree, eh? I could have come with you.”

I blinked down at her slowly. “Um. I thought I could handle it on my own,” I replied. It wasn’t a lie. I actually did think I could do it alone. And I didn’t even know you, I added mentally. “Sorry, Gammer.” I had to play along. This hobbit might kill me in my sleep if she got angry and I went from her extra-tall grandson to an extra-small troll.

She sighed heavily and tugged me along down the path. “Well, there’s no fixing it now,” she counseled. “Come on with me and let’s get out of here. I doubt I bashed all of these orcs round here and some will undoubtedly come back. No need to fret, my love, Gammer’s going to help you from here on out.”

That’s what I was afraid of, I told myself as I walked with her. I had to keep my strides short given her much, much smaller height. We made it out of Bleakrift and back to Candaith’s camp by evening, however, and found the Ranger waiting for us.

He halted when he spotted the small being walking alongside me. “Morchandir?” he asked me warily. “Who is this?”

I opened my mouth to reply when Dandelion beat me to it. “Dangerous Dandelion Digweed, at your service!” she announced with a little bow. “You must be the Ranger that my grandson mentioned. Candle-eye, was it?”

“Candaith,” I sighed with a pleading look toward him. His brows lifted in such a way that I knew I would get no help from that quarter. “This is my… grandmother, yes.”

I could tell from how he looked from her tiny form to my overly-tall one and bit the inside of his cheek that he had barely controlled his laughter. He nodded once and told the hobbit, “Indeed. I’m Candaith. This is my encampment here.” He motioned. “Would you like to have a seat? I might just have a little tea to share.”

She made a happy sound and trundled over to one of the logs by the fire. “Oh, quite! Do you have anything for throats?” She motioned at me as I followed her. “My poor grandson got choked near to death by that horrible orc up there! He’s all bruised up and hoarse from it.” She put her shield down beside her and then grumbled, “Terrible things, those orcs. How they’ve come so far into the Lone-Lands is a travesty!”

Candaith’s gaze moved to my neck and grew sharp. “I can see,” he agreed with her. “Morchandir, are you sure you’re well?”

“You should see the other guy,” I growled with a smirk.

Dandelion hmphed softly. “I’ll have to have my shield hammered out in the next place we go. Orc heads are hard.”

I pointed at the hobbit as I looked at Candaith. “She saved me. Fought her way up there and then…. Well, I’m not sure, actually, because by that point I was being killed slowly.”

“I yelled at him and hit him with my shield repeatedly,” she sniffed at me. “Just like with the others. I have skills they weren’t prepared for.”

Candaith moved to some of his gear and rifled through it while we spoke. “A Guardian, then.” He nodded and pulled forth a small jar. “You’re in a little luck, my burglar friend. Your… grandmother… can help protect you and distract your targets while you come in from another place to attack them.” He rose and moved to me so that I could take the small jar from him. “Use this on your throat. It should help with the bruising and healing. I would bandage it just to keep it from smearing all over, but I don’t happen to have any on hand.”

“Oh, well,” Dandelion said cheerfully as she tore off a strip from her cloak. We both looked over at her in surprise as she handed it over to me. “Use this, dear. Gammer’s got you.”

I took the strip of cloth from her, bewildered, and nodded at her. “Thank you,” I replied. Only when she turned away happily did a throw a quick look at Candaith.

He shook his head as he moved back to his tent and other items to collect them for tea. “Gammer Digweed,” he said to her, “these hills are full of orcs. They’ve come from the south and mean trouble.”

She nodded hurriedly as she pulled off her helm at last. A mess of grey and blonde curls sat slightly flattened beneath. “Morchandir explained it a little on the way down. You don’t know what tribe they’re from?”

“No ma’am.” The Ranger shook his head. He had a small pot for water that he filled up and set on the small fire he had going already. “In all my wanderings, I’ve never seen that sigil before. A white hand.”

Her lips thinned as she pressed them together. “That’s worrisome,” she agreed. “In my youth, I had a few adventures and ran through some orcs. I don’t remember seeing that symbol, either.”

It reminded me. I finished my application of the balm with a small noise and resealed it. Setting the jar down on the ground, I then gingerly pulled out the letter that I had gone to fetch from Uzorr’s camp. “Candaith,” I said, offering it to him when he looked my way. “Here. I found this outside of Uzorr’s tent.”

Dandelion made a little sound of dismay. “Was that his name?” She watched the Ranger rise and return to me to collect both jar and paper with a look of complete curiosity. A hobbit, no matter their age, was still a hobbit. “What are orcs doing with letters? I didn’t know they could read.” When I picked up the strip of cloak, she moved to me immediately and gently flapped her hands at mine. “You let me do it. I can make it comfortable. I’ve had all the practice,” she told me firmly.

I let her have her way and looked toward Candaith as he set his balm aside and opened the letter to look at it. “It’s a fair question,” I admitted aloud. “I mean, I know they can speak because they’ve learned how to use our language. But read? Write?” I motioned at Candaith. “We’ve found one letter in something that isn’t what we speak. I suppose they can read well enough to suit their purposes.” I smirked. “Probably better than I can.”

The hobbit woman made a disgruntled sound. “None of that,” she said with a tweak to my nose that I jerked away from slightly. Not that my nose wasn’t a huge target, mind, but I hadn’t even expected it in the least. “I didn’t raise idiot Tooks, and I’m sure my children haven’t raised worse!”

I frowned. “Gammer,” I began to argue, knowing very well that I couldn’t read very well and didn’t have a stellar education, but Candaith made an equally notable sound of frustration that interrupted me. “What is it?” I asked him.

“Another letter written in the Black Speech, Morchandir, and its meaning evades me as did that of its fellow.” Dandelion secured the cloth around my neck as he spoke. “This one, however, bears the mark of the White Hand.”

I frowned, too. “The other didn’t?”

“No. Only the messenger himself, on the armor you brought back,” he reminded me with a nod toward Neeker. He folded the paper up and tapped it on his fingertips in thought. “We must know what message this letter bears.”

“And the other,” I said with a nod as Dandelion moved away. “But who do I need to find to translate them? Does anyone know this Black Speech that I can take them to?”

The Ranger chuckled softly. “This is not a task for you, Morchandir.” I opened my mouth to disagree, but he held up a hand to stall me. “I have finally discovered information on the whereabouts of Radagast, but there is something that you should see first.”

I closed my mouth again. “What is it?”

He grimaced. “Rather, I think it’s something that I want you to see about for me, first.” He tucked the note away and looked between the two of us as he prepared Dandelion’s cup of tea for the addition of hot water. “I know that you’ve heard something about this already, Morchandir, but let me give it more meat now that Gammer Digweed has joined you.” Don’t say it like that, I wanted to reply and refrained. The crazy little Guardian needed to go back to Bree. Or needed a good, solid knock to the head to make her remember that she didn’t have a 6’6″ hobbit grandson.

But Candaith continued. “As I was returning from the lands to the east, the night sky over Weathertop was lit by bright flashes of white light, akin to lightning, yet no clouds darkened the sky and of thunder there was no sound.”

I nodded and looked at Dandelion. “I think it’s what got Radagast moving,” I added. “He spoke with Saeradan about it.”

“Oh?” she replied and perked up. “I know that Ranger! He’s quite serious, but I’ve wandered a bit with him after I retired in Bree.” She set her hands in her lap with a bright smile at me. “How is he, these days? Is that young Grimey Proudfoot still hanging about hoping to be of service to him?”

Candaith looked from her to me in slight bemusement. “Ah, Gammer, he’s Master of Apprentices, now,” I hurriedly informed her. “But we shouldn’t get sidetracked. Candaith was telling us a story.”

She fluttered her hands again. “Oh, deary me! I’m so sorry. Continue.”

He took a breath and let it out again in a soft sigh, but his faint smile told me that he wasn’t upset. “I think that no ordinary storm visited Amon Sûl that night,” Candaith told us both after a moment. “I want to know what it might have been.” He set his forearms on his knees as he crouched by the fire. “I ask you to search the ruins atop Weathertop tomorrow and see if there is anything to find, my friends. If you do find anything out of the ordinary, return to me immediately.” He motioned. “In the meantime, I’ll have the letters looked at so we know what to expect. I would have you both go right now, but you need to recover a little tonight, and by the time you got up to the summit and started back down again, the darkness would make it treacherous.” He added after, “Well, more treacherous, at least. There seem to be orcs wandering up to it from the base, here, and I’m uncertain as to why.”

I watched him pour a bit of hot water into the herbs already in the cup waiting. It would need to steep for a bit, but Dandelion didn’t seem to mind. I listened in the silence to the insects chirping and making noises in the growing dusk. “How do you mean to get the letters translated?” I finally asked. “I don’t know of anyone nearby, do you?”

Candaith hesitated before speaking. “It would take far too long for me to travel to the person I know and then come back, even by horse. I can send a message to him and an answer should arrive in a day, two at most. Crows and ravens fly much faster than I could walk or either of our horses could run.” His mouth formed a firm line. “Which means I have to leave now to save time. I hope by the time you both can make it to the summit of Weathertop and then back down again, I should have the answers that we need from these letters.”

He picked up the tin cup to bring it to Dandelion, who thanked him politely, and then she said, “It should most likely take a day up and then another one down even if we go by the roads left on it. Travelers use the lower areas for camping purposes, I’ve heard, but they don’t go to the top unless they mean to stay more than a single day. The going is rough and rocky when you don’t know the area.”

The Ranger nodded with a quick smile for the hobbit. “The lady is correct,” he agreed.

She chuckled. “Oh, dosh. I’m no Lady. I’ve cracked far too many skulls in my time for that nonsense!”

Candaith laughed as he returned to his things to gather what he needed. He moved with the quick assurance of one who had been used to doing so for most of his life. “I would expect no less from Morchandir’s grandmother.”

I shot him a baleful glare. “Don’t encourage her,” I growled. I’d be parting from the crazy hobbit as soon as I could slip away from her.

He shook his waterskin with a grunt at the sound before strapping it around his body and smirking at me. “If she can keep you alive and out of trouble, friend, I will encourage her to the stars and back.” He stood before them for another moment after checking for his weapons and a few other items. “Where I’m heading should take me no longer than a few hours to arrive, but I mean to stay there until the response is returned. If you come to the camp and don’t see me, wait another day or two. I should be back by then, at the very latest. My brethren will know my urgency is great.” He stepped toward me, and I rose from my seated position near Dandelion to clasp his forearm. She received a nod. “Take care until my return,” he said in farewell before setting off into the gloaming.

I watched him until he vanished. Only then did I return to my seat with Dandelion. “I’ll take first watch,” she said lightly. “You can sleep for a while, my dear.  What will we have for supper?” She set her cup of tea down and moved her own pack to be closer to her. Rummaging through it, she commented, “I have some nice, crusty bread, some cheeses, fruit, oh! A bit of ham and roast left from lunch, too!” She sounded infinitely pleased.

Is her whole satchel full of foodstuffs? I wondered in growing surprise. She kept pulling things out of it like it had been enchanted by Gandalf himself. “Grandm… err, Gammer?”

“Yes, pumpkin?” She didn’t stop when she answered.

“Gammer, why did you only bring food?” I asked after a moment. “You must have needed other supplies, too?” And then I realized it: “And how did you follow me from Bree if you had no horse?”

“Pish-posh,” Dandelion replied with a wave of her hand. “The pony is hidden safely away, and I’ll collect it later.”

“But… the wolves—”

“And you’re a growing boy,” she continued, brooking no argument. “Between the two of us, I know we’ll need quite a bit of food. Hobbits and their kin do love to eat!” She almost twinkled as she said it. “Now, come get something to nosh upon and then look to settling in for bed. I’ll tuck you in.” Part of me wanted to disagree. The rest almost did before realizing I could eat my fill and then sleep a good while after she took watch. It promptly bludgeoned my complaints to death and agreed with what she said. Maybe this arrangement isn’t as bad as I first thought, I told myself as I began to eat.

A Burg’s Tale: Chapter 17

This hero business is not what it’s made out to be, I noted as I watched more than one orc patrolling along the wooden walls of an encampment they had built along the water. “And to think, I drank from that at one point,” I muttered under my breath in disgust. Orc filth along a waterfall, leading off to the Marshes via other waterfalls… You’d think they might have learned some habits from the Men and Elves they had come across, but I had yet to see them clean or pick up after themselves. To say nothing of their eating habits, I also noted with a grimace, spotting one of their number tearing at a boned leg of some form, heedless of the mess it made down its front, before tossing the remnants aside into a pile with other offal inside.

This was Bleakrift. I had made my way across the river at a ford and then over the opposite hill to find myself in front of a small entrance leading to the bottom of some falls. Orcs guarded the entrance they had built there, but I had managed to sneak past them without incident. More of them wandered through the area that I had to avoid, but at least the sound of the rushing water made my sneaking simple. They couldn’t hear me; I just had to make sure they didn’t see me, and I was set.

I had come across a chest as I walked and found myself drawn to it as a burglar would be. It took no time at all to open the lock on the box and find what was within. The valuables were more or less trinkets to me, but I pocketed them, nonetheless. Whatever the reason for them being in an orc camp, I knew the orcs themselves weren’t creators to make and care for these types of items. No, they belonged to Men or Elves, and perhaps Candaith would know who exactly I should return them to. For a price, of course. My altruism only went so far.

I found Bleakrift to be filled with rope bridges, orcs, and more of the chests scattered about. More than once, I saw the orcs squabbling among themselves viciously. Violence ended anywhere in death to maiming with very little in the way of innocuous fisticuffs involved. I knew I should keep moving whenever one broke out, but I had to listen to see who this Uzorr was and where he might be – a free show never hurt matters, in the process. Other orcs either did the same as I or broke up the fighting as soon as they could with threats of doom from those above them. “Aren’t enough of us,” one of them snarled at the two who had been scuffling. “Kill each other some other time.”

Even that information was useful to me. There aren’t reinforcements coming any time soon, I thought as they shuffled off, grumbling, to get back to their duties. Interesting. Whatever orcs are here, that’s all that are here. Any that I kill off besides Uzorr will be one less to harm the people in this land and others.

It gave me a new impetus to try and eliminate as many of the creatures as I possibly could. I needed to corner them one on one to do it, though, and there were far too many of them for only me to handle. I would need help that I didn’t have right now. Candaith would have to do that part at some point and fulfill his words about running the orcs out of the Lone-lands at some point. I wished, briefly, that I didn’t have such a standoffish attitude when it came to others. I needed friends to travel with if I meant to make more of an impact.

I found I wanted to do so. I had been given a duty and, like my past training as a fighter had drilled into me, I now wanted to complete that duty better than expected. My duty was to help save the lands I now roamed from Angmar, the Witch-King, and Sauron however I might. I couldn’t do it alone and realized that as I stood, hidden, inside this large orc camp befouling the waters of the Midgewater Pass. I would have to worry about it later. The middle of an orc camp was no place for an identity crisis.

Tents lined the path leading up the hill of Bleakrift. I used them to my advantage as I crept further up and around. Yet another rope and wood bridge faced me across a span, making me sigh.  It was the third one I would need to cross in this camp, and the hardest by far. Finding time to sneak across and avoid the orcs had thus far been possible by only the skin of my teeth, given its open aired nature, but I had timed it just right so that their attention remained elsewhere. This one had sentries posted that refused to move or look away. I could see, across the bridge, where the path turned and moved up to a circle of stones and boulders creating a cul-de-sac with a table and at least one tent nearby. It had to be Uzorr’s nest up there. Nest? Lair? Did orcs have nests? I wondered in idle speculation.

I would have to fight to get to it. I had the fact that fighting seemed common here to protect me from more than the sentries getting involved, at least. Surly things, I mused as I contemplated my first move. Maybe you should call yourself an orc instead of a troll so it fits more.

The idea hit me without warning. Distraction. Fighting among themselves – the combination might just work to get me across. I had no idea just yet of how I might come back over but given I might not be alive to do so, I felt that particular situation could be a focus for later. Cross that bridge when you get to it? I mused privately. My son would’ve enjoyed that joke.

Searching the ground where I stood, I gathered a few stones sized just right for throwing but also for leaving an impact. It couldn’t be a biting fly to get swatted away and ignored; no, these would be felt and noticed for what they were. I then waited and moved to another hiding place angled so that my throws would hit my chosen target whenever another orc passed him, and he couldn’t see what happened. The patrolling orc walked past on his path, stopped to look around with a bored air, and turned to go back the way it had come. I waited until it had taken several steps onto the bridge before flinging the first stone. It plinked sharply off one of the orc sentry’s shoulders to fall and roll away. The victim grunted and looked over at it with a frown as it came to a stop. He turned away again. I aimed another one at the second sentry and did the same with an identical reaction, though the first orc looked at it with growing irritation. I waited until the solitary patrol returned, did his thing, and walked back toward the other side before repeating the activity.

This time, the first orc rounded and snorted with a glare at the orc on the bridge. “You think throwing things is funny?” he demanded.

The patrol halted and looked back in confusion. “Throwing what things?”

The stationary orc made a disgusted sound and turned back around at his post, but his companion nearby muttered, “I should stab him if he does it again.”

“Me too.”

Silence. They shot nasty looks at the baffled orc this time as he came to the end of his route, stopped, and then turned back around. He said with difficulty before he moved off, “Maybe it a craban?”

“Shut up.”

“Why would it be a bird?” demanded the other in a growl. The orc moved off again with a wave of his thick-fingered hands without arguing.

A few steps later, I threw a bigger stone. It ricocheted off of the first orc’s head, and he put his hand up to the area to rub it as he turned back with a snarl. So did his companion. The patrol kept walking even as the other two got onto the bridge to follow him. Upon feeling the commotion on the planks beneath him, the sentry turned around to find himself being rushed by the two larger guards. He fled to the other side, turned, and drew his weapons to make a stand. It had the added benefit of drawing the attention of the other two sentries on the opposite side so that they, too, drew their weapons.

The fight was a vicious one. Orcs didn’t seem to need much to go after one another with the intent to kill and maim. I took the opportunity to head over the bridge to the other side and left it as soon as they had moved away far enough. I had barely hidden myself on the other side when the roaring of the officers sounded as they arrived to break it up. I didn’t move until the area had been cleared once again. Two orc corpses got dragged off over the bridge while the rest went to lick their wounds. That was easy, I noted mentally. How do they manage to fight together when they seem to hate each other so much?

I headed up to my next hiding spot quickly and quietly and soon, I could see a hulking orc moving around a campfire in front of a hide tent. He was armored and fierce, but he didn’t seem all that intelligent. Uzorr, I identified him privately. The table just outside had several documents that he had seemingly been looking over before the latest fight occurred. I slipped closer to the tent, swiped the documents, secured them in my clothing, and hid again to wait for a chance to strike at the War-master. I had half of my mission done. I had to finish it.

I was about to move when an orc approached who seemed to have some modicum of power. I thought I recognized the creature from earlier not by its looks but by its armor. It slowed, straightened its back, and strode into the tent as if unafraid. Having to report to the boss about the unrest, are we? I asked the officer with a little twitch up of my lips. Never a good thing.

“Two more dead?” bellowed Uzorr. “Do we grow on trees?”

I don’t know, do you? I asked myself, suddenly primed for an answer to where baby orcs came from. I remained disappointed a moment later. “No, War-master,” the officer replied as humbly as he could manage. “The others… they grow anxious. Nothing to focus on but each other. Can we just—”

The sound of a heavy blow made me wince, accompanied as it was by a grunt of some form. I recognized the sound of someone getting backhanded before Uzorr snarled, “If you can’t make them obey, then I will find another who can!”

“No! War-master, I’ll control them,” the officer pleaded. “Right now!”

“Right now!” Uzorr agreed. It was followed by the officer’s hasty retreat from the tent as he scurried down the path. He didn’t slow until he came into full sight of the other orcs. Is that how it is? I wondered with a purse of my lips and a beetling brow. They fight together against a common enemy but lacking one, they turn on one another? Is that violence so bred into them they have little control over it?

I could hear a commotion near the entrance at the bottom of the falls and wondered if the officer might be at the end of his tenure, after all. Uzorr threw one flap of the tent aside to stride out, wielding a spiked mace, and look down at what he could see but growled in frustration. The angle didn’t seem right, given he then moved to walk a bit lower down. This would be now or never. He hadn’t noticed the missing papers and wouldn’t expect an attack from behind. Slipping my knives free, I went soft footed toward his paused back, intent on aiming for the holes and gaps in his armor to make it quick. I couldn’t hold out for long against him otherwise. Orcs seemed built to withstand most attacks.

I only got one shot at him. Coming in from the southwest, I plunged my knives into the spaces beneath his arms, where his armor didn’t cover – or would have, had the blasted orc not started turning at the last moment. Just like before, one knife slid home and I pulled it free while the other missed its mark. Not for lack of aiming, this time, but due to the sudden shift of Uzorr’s bulky bicep into the path. When he roared and turned, I received the full strength of the back of his hand. I felt the blow rattle my entire chest as I staggered back, tripped, and crashed to the ground. I hadn’t kept my knife this time, nor was it anywhere near where I could retrieve it. The second had bounced away as well. My only saving grace from having my breastbone or ribs caved in was my light armor beneath my clothing.

This isn’t good, I thought to myself as Uzorr bared his fangs at me from beneath the visored helm. I couldn’t see his face through it nor did I really want to. “Puny little Man!” he stated as he came for me.

I lashed out with a foot for his leg and he dodged it. It gave me a moment to get to my feet in a crouching position, though, and to whip a throwing dagger through the air aimed for his neck above the chainmail he wore. He tried to dodge it and it caught him high in the ball of his shoulder to stick there. He reached up, tore it free, and threw it aside before charging me once again with the mace at the ready. I needed some other kind of weapon. The only place I could think of to get one at this point would be inside one of the tents.

At his newest assault, I turned and darted toward the first tent. Throwing it open, I came face to face with a gangly looking orc who blinked at me, still half-asleep, in utter confusion. A glance told me there were no weapons other than a bow inside. I heard Uzorr’s approach and roar, threw myself aside toward his tent, and heard the orc inside scream as he took the full brunt of his war-master’s mace blow to the head. It was truncated and came with a sickening crunching noise that I didn’t try to think about. Instead, I threw myself into Uzorr’s tent and found what I was after: a shortsword that seemed like it would do.

Not that Uzorr cared about his now-dead archer. He came in swinging as I ducked and rolled out. “Why couldn’t Candaith have wanted me to destroy these tents?” I asked myself aloud breathlessly. “I can do that!” Uzorr barreled out again after me as I finally stood my ground.

He rushed in and I tried to combat him. He was stronger, though, and despite scoring several deep wounds on his exposed arms and legs, he had the superior strength. I could outrun him but for how long? Sooner rather than later, one of his minions would notice our fight and come to help. He swung for me, missed, and in his own tiring state, failed to bring himself back to a defensive position before my shortsword had removed his mace-wielding hand at the wrist.

The howl that erupted from Uzorr made me realize my own mortality. There was no way the rest of the camp didn’t hear that, I realized with cold horror. I only had that much time to think it, too, before the orc had driven his shoulder into my body to propel me backward. I didn’t know where I was going until my back and head contacted the table I had stolen the orders from and buckled it under the force of my landing.

My ears rang for a long moment. I lay there, stunned, until the stench-filled breath of the War-master washed over my face to say, “Now, you will die, Man!” When he grabbed my throat, the grip was mighty for it being his off hand. I choked instantly, my breath cut off, and clawed instinctively at the meaty extremity trying to kill me. My other hand flapped around searching for something, anything, to use as a weapon to make him release me and came up with nothing. The shortsword had vanished somewhere along with my knives earlier. Is this it? I asked myself as my lungs burned and the blood pounded in my ears. Is this how it ends for me? So much elf queens in my dream and becoming a better person for my son to be proud of. I couldn’t even make it to Radagast as I was told.

I knew I was about to pass out from a lack of air when I spotted, behind Uzorr, a tiny set of hands gripping a shield lifted above him in the rapidly incoming darkness. You wanted to see your son so badly you’re hallucinating him saving you, I told myself as I blacked out. So much for famous last words…

A Burg’s Tale: Chapter 16

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.”

A Burg’s Tale: Chapter 15

The journey through the woods and terrain through and around Midgewater took most of a day even on Saeradan’s plucky little mare. I had to make camp halfway through tucked away in a safe little overlook so both my campfire and my horses wouldn’t draw attention. Orcs, goblins, wolves, and other beasts roamed through the rocky outcrops and forested trails just as Saeradan had said. I had already defended myself more than once from their aggressions and had run away on the mare, who Saeradan said was named Flower, almost as many times. Neeker seemed content to follow her without balking or falling behind even when fleeing danger.

And now, I sat across from a somber-faced Ranger and his campfire. I had galloped almost past his hidden area while escaping a pack of wolves when his aid helped chase them off. His tent remained tucked away near the upward slope of the nearby hill while a horse stood tethered nearby. Even the fire itself gave off little smoke. Our introductions had been quick yet simple. “I would have let you pass but for recognizing the mare you rode,” he explained after we had settled down. “I know Flower well. Saeradan sent you.”

“More or less,” I agreed. Candaith, though not quite as tall as me, was still above average height. It felt odd for me to only look down on him a little rather than the usual. Rangers, I reminded myself. The tall ones aren’t adopted in and wearing non-Westron names. They have a bloodline back to Númenor, no matter how diluted at this point. However, at his confused expression and the slow tug down of the fabric covering his nose and mouth, I explained, “Gandalf sent me to Saeradan in an attempt to find Radagast the Brown. Saeradan said he had come this way and that you might have seen him do so.”

Candaith’s features altered at the name of the wizards. He had a more critical once-over of me that seemed briefly wary before altering back to relaxed. “Radagast the Brown?” My sudden upwelling of hope died almost instantly as he shook his head “I have not seen him and know not of his passing, but there is a cold and a shadow that has come to these lands of late.”

I nodded at his words. “It has something to do with a gaunt-man and Agamaur, or something trapped in that place. That’s all that I really know, though. It’s why I’ve been sent to find Radagast; however, I’m under the impression that you came here to investigate the lightning up there.” I pointed toward the looming mass of Weathertop nearby. “Radagast apparently left sometime after you.”

He again shook his head. “He may have taken another path from mine to get here. Such is the way of wizards. It is said that he has powers related to nature and the beasts inside of it. If that is the case, then Radagast may have found his path far less challenged than either of our own, given the number of hostile creatures between Saeradan’s cabin and this place.”

“There are spiders in the Marshes big enough to ride, I’m told. I wouldn’t put it past him or Gandalf to do just that.” I gently lifted my hands to remove my own mask after I’d spoken. It seemed proper and right to do so, what with Candaith exposing his features to me first.

He chuckled without comment at first, but after I had set my mask aside, he scrutinized me closely for several moments. What is with all of these Rangers studying me like a new artifact? I wondered privately as I caught him doing so from the corner of my eye. First Saeradan and now this one? When I turned to meet his gaze and challenge him with it, Candaith relented. “Saeradan’s word comes late to the Lone-lands,” he replied instead. “If Radagast the Brown passed into these lands then perhaps hope is not lost in this place.”

Something about what he said left me uneasy. “Is it in other places?”

He pressed his lips together and his tone became grim. “I have returned only recently from a journey in lands far to the east, lands held firmly in the grip of evil.”

Alarm moved through me. My son lay to the east, over the Misty Mountains. “How far that way?” I countered. “And how long ago?”

He regarded me with more interest for my reaction. “Rhun,” he answered. “Months, given I just arrived. Though Northern Mirkwood is hardly any better.” As I relaxed, he chose not to press the issue. “Rhun has been under the control of Sauron for a very long time, though. The only hope of its redemption may be the final destruction of Sauron himself.”

I held my expression neutral as I looked toward Neeker and Flower. I couldn’t say anything about Strider and his mission nor of the Ring that one of the hobbits carried. “Then we can only hope it happens soon,” I replied evenly. It was hardly a lie.

“Too right.” He frowned at the fire as I returned my gaze to him. “When I returned from that journey, I learned to my dismay that evil does not stir in the East alone.”

I chuckled humorlessly. “No, it has a tendency to live everywhere.”

He glanced up at me again. “More than that.” His forearms settled on his knees and his hands rubbed together in idle thought. “Goblins now roam to the south, while their larger and more ferocious cousins among the Orcs spread through the Weather Hills like a festering plague.” I kept silent in the knowledge that he had more to say. I found my hunch correct when he stated, “I must find the main body of the Orcs.” His expression tensed slightly. “If you will assist me in driving back the Enemy in these hills, I will begin the search for Radagast the Brown. What say you?”

“Not much choice, is there?” I motioned at him. “You have tracking skills as a Ranger that I don’t. If I leave here, where am I going to go searching for Radagast on my own? I don’t have much knowledge of this area. Even if I did have an idea, if I found any information that would help us both out after I left, I don’t have the ability to find this camp without a guide or at least the time to familiarize myself with how it’s laid out in comparison to Weathertop there.” I nodded my head toward the massive hill with its ruins. “And, to be fair, if I’m here that long, I may as well help you anyway.”

He smirked a little. “You’re far cleverer than the average man. I would have mistaken you for a Ranger, yourself, were it not for the accent and the rather strange desire to wear a bird’s face over your own.”

I glanced askance at my mask and felt an answering smirk twitch up my lips. “Have you seen the thing its hiding? I consider it a blessing.” Changing the topic, I then asked, “Are there Rangers in the south?”

His brow creased. “How far south do you mean? We’re not the most numerous. Though I’m sure some of my brethren have wandered through those lands and beyond the same as I have in the East.”

And there are definitely none in Enedwaith or Dunland, I said silently. Not if the rumors that come from those lands are at all true. “I guess you aren’t named Rangers because you sit at home doing needlework.”

His laugh was pleasant and true even if it sounded as if he didn’t often use it. “Witty, too. Are you certain you’re not one of us?”

“My father died in one of Gondor’s battles when I was around five,” I explained with a lift of one shoulder. “Mother had no way to support me and left me on the street to save herself soon after. I’ve no idea where she went off to.” I stopped. “Or so I think. I wasn’t terribly old, and my memories of that time are vague. I’ve only really pieced things together from what I was told by people around me before I started wandering.”

“A Ranger by birth rather than by training,” Candaith said with a half-smile. “If you weren’t as old as you are now and still a child, you would’ve been taken in by one of us, I’m sure.”

I shook my head. “Only if you’d been there or I had been here.” I spread my hands. “Now, look at me. I’m a burglar charged by a wizard to help save the world.” I waved my hand around in a vague gesture to encompass where he had camped. “Beginning with this area, it seems.”

He slapped his hands against his knees decisively. “Stay here this evening and rest. Tomorrow, you can begin helping me while I help you. Search for Orcs among the Weather Hills, west of my camp, and thin their ranks. I will begin my efforts to find and track Radagast the Brown.” I didn’t say I’d do it, though, I nearly protested before recalling that I actually didn’t have much choice in the matter, as I’d said before. “It’s an offer that I can’t refuse,” I agreed drolly.

A Burg’s (Stramvárth) Tale

I stood overlooking the path down to Stramvárth once again. The clear night sky above had a thousand bright points of light scattered across it from horizon to horizon, marred only by the silhouettes of low ridges and mountains in the far distance and snow-frosted cliffsides laced with evergreens in the near. The stones and grasses beneath my booted feet swayed in the chill air, more scrub than anything, while heavy, large boulders dotted the hillsides around me. Despite the cold, my breath refused to fog beneath my mask and the dormant hardwoods stretched bare arms to the sky. Clouds drifted past with increasing thickness from behind me as a warning. The wind brought the smell of snow melted to rain as it passed.

I could see the sprawl of Stramvárth’s ruins from my perch on the hillside. This wasn’t my first visit to the place while in service to the Elderslade dwarves and Durin. I doubted it would be my last. This war wasn’t mine except for the goblins and trolls and other creatures involved still preying upon the Free Peoples. They needed stopping. The eastern side of the Misties existed leagues too close to my flesh and blood in the Dale-lands.

A pyre burned down in the ruins. Goblins had decided to camp there, according to the dwarf Horin, and needed routing. The dwarves of Annâk-khurfu had already spread themselves too thin. I had been one of several helping them take up the slack in their push to reclaim Gundabad. This shouldn’t be too hard, I mused darkly. They said the group was small. I can sneak in and slit their throats while they sleep. Nothing to it.

I stole shadow-like down the incline to do what I’d come to do, ever-conscious of the so-called Scout-master, Ausma, given our initial meeting. Despite the dwarf woman’s words, and her handiness with a dagger, she couldn’t sneak for anything nor could she have realized exactly how close to dying she had come by flashing a knife at my throat as she’d done. I still didn’t know how she’d even reached that part of me, given our differences in height. “I am Ausma of the Stout-axe clan. The Longbeard prince has named me Scout-master of his army,” she had greeted me. “This was a wise decision, I think, for I possess some skills that the Longbeards and Zhélruka do not.”

I had felt some modicum of faith rising in me that perhaps the overconfident dwarf might be worth talking to. “A harsh life in Mordor required those of my clan to learn how to evade the notice of our captors,” she had continued, to my surprise. Before I could really do more than feel it, though, she had blundered. “…and of course…”  At that point, she had produced a short dagger from somewhere to leave it an inch from my throat.

I hadn’t considered one of the dwarves would be as stupid as that. My hand had a knife in it without my conscious thought when I subconsciously noticed her motion. Even then, I had been slow. Too slow. The Scout-master had merely grinned while tucking it away. “…how to conceal our weapons and strike without warning,” she had finished.

I still held mine in my hand. Your overconfidence is going to end you one day, I had almost said. Instead, I had taken a deep breath. “Not the way to inspire trust in newly-met allies,” I had growled. “Do you always pull your weapons on them just to show off and prove a point or am I the exception to that rule?”

She had made a little dismissive noise. “You may think that is not an ‘honourable’ way to fight, and maybe you are correct—”

“No, I’m fine with it,” I had interjected drolly. “It’s my preferred method with actual enemies.”

She had shot me a sharp glare. “But slaves do not have such luxury,” she had finished with a hint of steel in her tone. “To my people, there was only survival, and the use of such skills proved necessary.”

“Your people aren’t the only ones in a situation that requires survival and those skills,” I had replied with as saccharine a tone as possible. “I’m living proof of that, sweetling.”

Her glare had been worthy of shriveling plant life. “If the prince would like me to use my skills to remove the foul Orcs from such a sacred site of his people, I am happy to oblige,” she had assured me with a setting jaw. I had opened my mouth beneath my mask to tell her that I hadn’t said otherwise, but she had cut me off.  “And you, Morchandir,” she had stated with a point at me, “will help me in this.”

I had finally eased my weapon back to its hiding place. That she hadn’t commented upon it meant she either hadn’t noticed it or hadn’t chosen to notice it. “Why not?” I had drawled as I’d slipped my thumbs into my belt while rocking back on my heels. “I find myself free at the moment from my hectic schedule of already agreeing to help you dwarves.”

She had rolled her eyes. “Let us begin…”

Of course, Ausma had told me that we would sneak to the main gates to scout it – and had then promptly left me the only one attempting the feat from the cover of shadows while she, instead, blazed ahead as if she had forgotten her own words. Once a dwarf, always a dwarf, I reminded myself even now.

Finally, close enough to see the crudely made tents and the crackling fire in its tripod shape, I found no sentries keeping watch and no bodies sprawled by the fire or inside the raggedy interior of the hide-bound shelter. The stench of goblin did cling to the place, however, making me wrinkle up my nose. Good, I thought as I continued toward the next campfire. Their lack of caution will spell their doom. I felt more than ready to slit some throats, especially after how the memory of my first meeting with Ausma left me rankled.

Only, this fire and tent lay empty, too. I frowned as I heard sounds from the raised stone architecture nearby that sounded very much like some form of revelry and, upon squinting away from the bright flames, finally picked out lanky figures that seemed to be the origin. It wasn’t until I approached the bottom of the stairs that I realized things weren’t as the previous scouts had believed: the goblins were all drunk to the point of ridiculousness. As I looked toward the top of the steps above me, I muttered, “No. No, no, I’m not going to handle this,” and promptly turned to walk away.

A screeching laugh came from behind me as my only warning. I wheeled around, drawing a knife – and promptly found myself bowled over as a goblin rolled into me from atop the raised stone platform. We fell together in a ball of limbs, stench, and curses. Mostly mine. I lost my knife in the process and wondered if I were about to be stabbed to death by the smaller goblin.

It blinked at me woozily and declared, “Ehhh? You not a goblin!”

“I’m an ogre, actually,” I grunted back, appalled at the rotten smell of its breath.

“Smell like Man-flesh,” it told me before grinning widely. “Bet you no drink goblin grog, ogre!”

I fumbled for one of my other knives and shoved at the smaller creature. “Gerroff!” I snarled. It did so and scampered clumsily up the stairs again, calling as it did, “Man came to drink!”

“Fff…..” I began, flopping my head back to the ground. With a sigh, I got to my feet and adjusted my mask slightly. Spotting the gleam of my knife in the dim fire light, I swept it up even as nine pairs of eyes peered at me in various stages of inebriation from above me.

“Ahhhh, ha ha haaa!” howled one of them in what sounded like mad glee. “Got you now, mask Man!” It pointed at me triumphantly with a wavering arm as if it couldn’t quite get me to stay still.

I sheathed the weapon and grunted. They hadn’t attacked me yet, Man or otherwise, and I had no idea why. Staring up at them warily, the largest of them, stockily built as well, told me, “Stupid dwarves sent you, I bets.”

I flexed my gloved fingers. “You’re not wrong,” I agreed. “You need to clear out.”

The goblin widened its sneering smile. “Make us! Challenges!” He turned and lifted his arms to the cheers of the other, smaller goblins as he moved out of sight the way he had come. I could only roll my eyes. Eru had it out for me. “This is punishment for being a murdering assassin and thief, isn’t it?” I asked under my breath as I mounted the steps. There were far too many of them for me to fight well, even in their state, without getting seriously injured. I would have to play this game of theirs and hope that they kept their word. At least, I consoled myself, if they don’t, they’ll be in no shape to keep anyone from offing them in their drunken stupor before morning.

I came to a halt at the top. In the center, upon a dais of stone, stood the semi-armored goblin leader cheering while around him, lesser goblins sat, crouched or slowly swayed in some form of mindless, inebriated dance. A fire sat to the left side while tents ringed the center and wooden stools, of a sort, stood waiting for pints of what I could only assume were alcohol. Goblin grog, as it had been called, probably from one of the kegs scattered about. One or two of the smaller ones dipped their tankards into the barrel to put the mugs sloppily atop the four stools.

They want me to drink that? I asked with a revulsion I hadn’t felt in a long while. “Drink!” taunted the leader from his position and the others hooted at me in utterly sauced derision. Another shouted something incomprehensible to me while a third laughed shrilly at my hesitation. I trudged to the nearest goblin and the waiting pint while a second goblin thrust a full mug into the hands of its companion across from me, sloshing it all over the creature’s hands, while it continued swaying and shuffling its feet. I knew the signs of a contest when I spotted one. That the goblins had them in much the same manner and fashion as Men and dwarves surprised me. You cannot be thinking of downing whatever concoction is in that tankard, a part of my brain asked me in horror.

With a wrinkled nose, I took it up in my hands and looked at my competition. I didn’t even know the rules of this game. First to get finished? Stay standing? Would they put a knife in me from behind while I drank? Another goblin stumbled over to us and sneered, “No head for drink! Can’t stand real challenge!”

That irked me. No goblin was going to call me a coward after the number I had killed in face-to-face combat. “I can. Watch and learn, oliphaunt ears.” I lifted a hand to peel off my mask so that I could drink and tucked it into my belt.

He cackled and lifted his hands. “Ready!” he barked out. I couldn’t back out, now. Down came its clawed hands as it shouted, “Go!”

I held my breath and started swallowing the foul brew as quickly as possible while the other goblin attempted to do the same. My stomach clenched. I kept going, finally breathing out through my nose slowly, and when I finished the pint, I slammed the empty thing home on the stool first. My whole body wanted to reject it for a few moments before I wiped my mouth with the back of my covered hand. Straightening, I wondered if it was poisonous to my system. Surely, you’ll find something to use as an antidote if so, I consoled myself.

The other goblin drank his pint far more slowly than I had, his entire body still swaying, and most of the drink landing on him rather than in him. Before he could finish, though, he pulled it away, slurred out, “Everything is spinning,” and let it fall from his hand. Moments later, he dropped like a stone.

I peered down at him. “That’s one, I suppose.” Only seven more and the leader to go, I noted with dread. I didn’t know how much more of the goblin grog I could feasibly stomach.

Turning to the right, I decided to take on the next goblin wanting to drink. Like the first one, he got a pint shoved into his hands by an unsteady companion and another was set out for me just after. I took mine up and waited for the… score-keeper? Time-keeper? Whatever role the other goblin had decided to play, at least. Up went his hands and, when they came down with the order to start, I never hesitated. I gulped the grog while holding my breath as much as possible to keep the horrid stuff from getting me too queasy with its taste and smell. We finished together, this time, and I had to clench my fist tightly around the mask at my waist to keep from becoming physically ill. I was so focused on holding in my stomach contents that I almost missed it when the goblin proclaimed, “Well, I’m done.” He barely made it to his tent before falling over.

Bloody well think I may be too before this is done, I worried with a belch that left an equally foul aftertaste. That’s two. Eru, give me strength…

A goblin behind me cheered in wordless, vicious sounds as he flailed his arms. I had no idea if he was too drunk to think straight or if that was his normal method of communication. I turned and moved toward him to find the pint already waiting for me on the stool before him. He made another sound and I stared at him for a long moment before asking, “Are you all…?”

“Yeeaugh!” he interrupted me with a cry that should have had froth along with it, and I stepped back slightly despite myself. “Yeah, never mind, then,” I finished and hurriedly drank the horrid pint at the other goblin’s say-so.

I fought the rising bile once again as he simply fell backward and then crawled toward his tent. “You win,” the goblin with me said. He had another pint in his hand, too, and drank from the swill within as he moved to the last stool.

“Why did I think this was an idea?” I asked as the first wooziness crept into my brain. I then recalled that it hadn’t been mine and decided that explained it. Only a bunch of sloshed goblins could have thought this was an idea at all, let alone a good one.

The last of my challengers stood mostly slumped and slopping his drink on the ground, muttering to himself as if dazed. The goblin at my side reached out and poked him with an “Ehh?” and then shrugged at me. “Go,” he told me and proceeded to race me himself. I drank mine without preamble this time. He may have finished first, but by the time I was done, my actual opponent had spilled most of his drink down his front. I’m not sure what he said as the tankard dropped from his hand, but it might have vaguely sounded like, “You win.” Or “blue fins.” Or “wooins.” Regardless, he crumpled and moaned pitifully.

The goblin with me staggered off to his place and I looked at the leader. He was… dancing. I think? I wasn’t entirely sure. Four more lesser goblins remained and, as if conscious of my tipsy hesitation, he bellowed, “Still not done!”

“Oof. Right.” But these last four goblins weren’t drinking. Nor were they dancing. I watched the closest one for a long moment as my head continued spinning harder when an idea hit me. I should use my newfound dominance, I decided. Simple, yet effective. Moving to loom over the goblin, I pointed at its tent with as forbidding an expression as I could manage. In the corner of my eye, I could see the goblin directly opposite stirring as if it had half a mind to obey as well. I was about to speak up when, like a child, the goblin groused, “Fine, I’ll go to bed!”

My arm dropped. How did that even work? I asked myself. And what in Eru’s name did they put in that grog they have? I slipped the mask back on and moved to the uneasy goblin to repeat the gesture as sternly as I could muster. This time, though, he just stared at me in confusion before ignoring me. His neighbor, on the other hand, replied to me as if I were a child by saying, “Yes, my bed is that way.” I looked between the two of them in confusion, myself, before shaking my head. That most certainly didn’t help the feeling of dizziness increasing in my head.

I had to do something fast for these last two goblins or I wouldn’t be in any state to face the leader. Was he even drunk? I stared at his dancing figure and figured he was. Turning back to the goblins left, I moved to the one I had confused and pointed again. Yet again, the goblin ignored me. With a growl, I tried telling him, “Go to bed!”

“You’re not my mother!” it shouted in drunken irritation.

“I hope not, because you look like your father!” the leader guffawed.

In frustration, I just waved goodbye at it as sarcastically as I could manage with the mental promise to kill it later when it made a final little sound and told me, “Good night!” as he grumpily retired. I had to stare at my hand for a moment before swiveling to the final lackey and waving toward it. Like the first one, it whined out a good night and crawled off to its tent.

“What in…?” I asked aloud, even more baffled and convinced that I had to either be dreaming or in the middle of a grand, cosmic joke that Eru had decided to play. “Why did it work?”

When I moved to confront the goblin leader, I felt light-headed and invincible to some degree. The remaining rational portion of my brain recognized this as nothing good. I glared up at him. Even my considerable height couldn’t quite match his superior high-ground. That annoyed me further.

“Yar,” he finally slurred at me, “what do you want, eh?!”

He swayed dangerously as I blinked. “You… don’t remember? I—”

He interrupted me. “Well, whatever it is, I’m not gonna give it to you!” He paused and squinted down at me. “Did you even tell me?” Before I could reply, he continued with a wave. “No matter!” He pointed a waving finger at my masked face. “You’ll have to best my dancing to get whatever you be wanting!”

“Your what?” I blurted, having expected a fight instead. Out of the many things that I could have answered with, that was the one I went with. I mentally kicked myself for a moment. Not my wittiest moment, to be sure.

He grinned down at me. “Can you squirm, worm?!” He laughed wildly at his own joke as if it had been the best one ever created.

“You want me to dance with you, you absolute…” I threw my arms up. “You know what? Fine. And when I win, you and your boys clear out when you wake up or you wake up dead, how’s that?” I set my hands on my hips. “At least I won’t be bleeding by the end.” My dignity may be dead, though, I added as an afterthought.

He wasted no time. He made a wiggling motion that I assumed was some form of dance he had possibly seen Free People doing at some point, then jumped, exclaiming, “Best that!” It was followed by a laugh. “You cannot defeat me!” I self-consciously did a little move that was that dance in reality, feeling like an utter fool.

He made a second move, a mockery of a dance, and I grit my teeth as the buzzing of my head broke my remaining hesitation. No bloody orc was going to out-dance me with stolen, corrupted moves that it thought were wonderful. I responded this time with a fancy jig of sorts complete with hands on my hips and then one in the air motioning, much to the goblin’s frustration. “Is this all you’ve got?” he tried to say while I danced.

I stopped and glared up at him. “Better than whatever you’re doing!” I replied.

He danced a third time and then a fourth. Feeling more relaxed, and quite a bit more confident, I performed a pair of dances I’d learned while on the road during my merchant guarding days, full of kicks and slaps to my heels. The last one seemed to impress and dismay the drunkard to the point of conceding. I’d had to rely on my burglar agility to make it happen without falling over myself. “Oof, you win,” he told me. “Ugh!”

“Off by morning!” I called to him as he stumbled off to sleep. I felt like I might be able to trip on invisible things, myself.

“Fine, fine…” he whined.

I stared after him. He might not keep his word. Something told me that he would, though. I doubted he wanted to face me again after the humiliation of losing his dance competition, Man as I was. I know I didn’t want to face him again for the same reason. “We will never speak of this again,” I promised myself under my breath.

I met my escort sometime later, after waiting out the tipsy swirling in my head, so that I seemed as calm and collected as when I’d come with him earlier. “They’ll move off by the morning,” I explained as we walked back.

He gave me an odd look. “You didn’t kill them?”

I shrugged. “I didn’t have to. I drank them under the table.” He gave me a surprised, and perhaps pitying, look that I waved away. “Don’t ask about their grog. It’s disgusting and I’ll go to my death-bed regretting I ever tasted it.” I paused. “They’re extremely drunk, however, and it should be fairly easy to get rid of them if needed tomorrow morning should they still be around.”

The dwarf chuckled. “Great work, Morchandir! You defeated the goblins, and without drawing your weapon?! I am impressed!” He clapped me on the back. “Let us return and report your success.”

As we walked the barely lit roads back to the dwarf-hold, I asked in morbid amusement, “Do you think I’ll get an award for bravery for swilling that brew of theirs?”

“If you survive until morning, you can ask the prince about it.”

Fear thrilled through me. “What? Do you really think I’ve been poisoned?” I demanded with growing alarm.

The dwarf laughed heartily. I glowered at him and, finally, he told me, “No, you should be fine.” He paused and, with a final smirk, added, “I hope.” I jerked my head back over at him and made a low grunt of displeasure, which made him laugh even harder this time. Idiot dwarves, I grouched silently. No wonder the goblins dislike you all.