Fan Fiction – Page 2 – LOTRO Players

A Burg’s Tale: Chapter 22

Once off Weathertop, Candaith instructed us in what to find to make healing poultices for his wounds and how best to bind them up after so that he could function more normally. Dandelion chose to do most of the nursing work while I fetched and carried and then cooked. She made the tea for him and demanded I check myself to make sure that my throat and limbs were still healthy. “What about you?” I countered, setting my hands on my hips and glowering down at her from high above. “If you’re wounded, too, then you’ll be right next to him, Gammer.” Half of me hoped she’d taken a knock or two that would keep her here while I moved on. The other half was exhausted and probably hallucinating everything since it felt that Dandelion’s care and attention was nice. Maybe you took one too many blows to the head, too, I chided myself as we finally settled down for the night to rest. None of us were going to have it in us to stand guard for long. Dandelion and I took turns in four hour shifts in order to snatch a bit of sleep where we could and tend to the admittedly half-conscious Ranger.

By morning, Candaith had stabilized enough to sit up by the fire rather than sleep in his tent alongside whichever of us wasn’t on watch. Only then did we feel safe enough to sleep more fully, with Candaith keeping an eye on things while we both rested as if dead. It wasn’t until closer to evening that I finally stirred awake to stay, though Dandelion had been awake and helping Candaith for a few hours by that point. We ate our meal before he finally got down to business.

“You should prepare to leave tomorrow,” he offered to us in a most solemn manner.

Dandelion had none of it, though. “Pish-posh,” she fired back. “Leaving you here injured for the other orcs to fall upon and tear to bits? I think not!”

“She has a point, Candaith,” I added. “You’re in no shape to defend yourself should they find you here, and I would bet hiding away isn’t going to be an option yet.”

He waved one hand. “I am well enough,” he began, but the hobbit growled at him to interrupt. “We carried you down that hill not a night ago because you couldn’t walk on your own for those wounds,” she told him. “Until you can move without tearing them open and bleeding all over the place, we can stay right here. In fact, I would much rather we find somewhere with better lodgings for you to recover in.”

“Gammer Digweed,” Candaith said, “I appreciate your concern, but by the time we reached the Forsaken Inn, I would be well enough to move around on my own once more. If I can slip away from orcs on my own, I can be on my own completely.”

I grimaced. “Orcs can smell Men. I’m sure they know the scent of Men’s blood, too. They’d be able to track you.”

He graced us with a bemused look. “Do you think Rangers have survived this long fighting our enemies without considering that very thing? You should worry less, Morchandir. I know what to do to protect myself until I’m fully healed again.” He sighed. “Besides, I should be in relatively safe surroundings now.” At my confused expression, he elaborated. “Do not concern yourself with the Orcs that remain. This far removed from the Southlands, they will dwindle and become only a small danger to travelers through the Lone-lands.” He spread his hands briefly. “Travelers and lamed Rangers, both, really.”

He grew more serious. “But to the bigger issue at hand. We have won a pivotal battle, my friend. You have earned some rest, I think, for the great threat posed by these orcs is now finished! Now, let me aide you in your endeavor to find Radagast the Brown.”

In the great push to help the Ranger, I had completely forgotten that the entire reason we’d had to was so that he would give us the information he had on Radagast. The reminder narrowed my eyes in irritation at him. I should’ve stabbed him once, too, for all of this trouble, I told myself. “Good of you to fulfill your part of the bargain after we did,” I said instead. “All considered.”

“I take pride in keeping my oaths,” he replied a touch drolly. “It’s almost a family trait, you see.” He took in a breath and then continued. “I managed to track Radagast south and there met friends, the Eglain, who make some ruins here in the Lone-lands their home.” He leaned back on one hand with a wince and Dandelion moved to find the poultices that would help numb his pain. “They are a solitary and quiet people, having shunned societal obligation for a simple life eked out here. The few that do venture towards the more civilized areas of the world are still different than most you will ever meet.”

I looked over at Dandelion and then back at Candaith again in a very obvious manner and he looked down with a barely contained smile. Different, I said with my look. “Oh, I’m sure they’re just fine,” I drawled. “I’ve met far stranger.”

He shook his head and didn’t comment on what I’d said. “Because of this nature, they are truly wary of anyone who wishes to traffic with them or their allies, and it seems that Radagast has enlisted their aid, not only now, but at some time in the distant past.” Not surprising, I noted internally. Radagast may as well be the Brown Pilgrim from the way he travels. But Candaith hesitated, and as he offered me an apologetic face, I knew I wasn’t going to like what he would say. “I fear that you will need to earn the right to speak with Radagast.”

I groaned. “What? No…” I rubbed at my temples as I felt my head start pounding slightly. “Did he hire them as his guard dogs? Can you even do that? Hire an entire society of people as guards? What does that take?”

“Not money,” Dandelion chimed in gruffly from where she prepared a poultice. “The Eglain struggle to survive out here. If Radagast had wealth enough to pay them, they wouldn’t need to live so poorly. You would see one now and then in Bree, sometimes just passing through and other times bringing wares in to sell from the Forsaken Inn.”

Candaith shrugged gently. “I have done what part I can. My horse will take you south and east to The Forsaken Inn. There, you should seek an audience with Gadaric Munce. He will know your name. Be safe, Morchandir.” He tipped his head. “When you go, that is.”

“How will this Munce fellow help me find Radagast if you couldn’t even track him?” I asked him with growing frustration. “If they wouldn’t even talk to you and you KNOW them?”

He shook his head. “I know them well enough to get the information from them, but because I know them that well, I know that I can’t ask them to tell me when I’ll be offering that same information to someone they’ve never met. I spoke well of you, friend, but Gadaric wants to speak with you himself. They protect Radagast and want to know that you have good intentions. Can you blame them when so much in this world is given out for nothing, and often, that knowledge hurts people unintentionally?”

I suddenly recalled the words of the orcs of Weathertop. Saruman, I noted. I had looked away when it struck me, but looked back at Candaith immediately. I opened my mouth to ask Candaith who Saruman was and if that might be the orc leader in the south at the head of things, but Dandelion interrupted me. “We’ll go once you’re fit enough.”

The Ranger shook his head. “If Gandalf has tasked Morchandir with finding Radagast, you need to hurry along and do so. The Eglain will have you working to earn their trust. That will take time that you may not have.”

“So says the man who bartered time for aid, himself,” I growled while pushing the question away. “You should switch him for that, Gammer. It’s highly disrespectful.”

She leveled a look at me. “I’ve half a mind, but he’s had his punishment with his injury. No need to compound it.”

I felt my jaw gape open. “Wh… you…” I sputtered. “My throat hadn’t even healed when you switched me for even less!”

She pointed at me. “And I’ll do it again if you don’t hush, grandson. He’s not my family and most certainly hasn’t chosen a life of crime and villainy on top of the disrespect. I may have no call to curb his bad habits, but it’s my duty to do so for yours!”

I shot Candaith a black look that he merely smirked at in return. “Fine. We leave tomorrow morning, then,” I agreed with him grudgingly.

“Morch…” began Dandelion, but it was my turn to interrupt her. “No, Gammer. Candaith is right. We need to hurry along and even if he could come with us, he’ll be in no shape to fight and will only slow us down.”

The Ranger nodded. “My duties lie here in the Lone-lands, Gammer Digweed. I chose to protect this place with my knowledge and skills or I would never have discovered these orcs’ plans. Rest and take your leave tomorrow. You may use my horse. I’ll collect it from the inn as soon as I’ve healed enough to travel.”

I frowned at Dandelion. “We’ll need to find a mount for you,” I pointed out. “Neeker carries me and anything I have to pack along with me.”

“You may find one for sale at the inn or in Ost Guruth,” Candaith said. “The Eglain may not have much, but they do sometimes have horses and ponies for sale just as they trade in other goods.”

Dandelion sighed. I could see by her expression that she knew she was outnumbered. “Very well. Let’s eat and get you settled, young man. That way we can rest up overnight, make sure you’re comfortable tomorrow, and make it to the inn before nightfall.” She paused. “Though, are you sure that we can’t take you with us…?”

“Very,” the Ranger said. “In fact, I should be mobile enough to change my dressing and do what’s necessary without help thanks to your nursing skills today.” He flashed her a smile and she looked mildly flustered. I found myself reminded once more of her comment only a few days past about how handsome she found the Ranger. It was almost cute in a strange, disturbing fashion, much like the Guardian herself.

By the time morning came, I found my old set of clothing had been mended, though not yet cleaned, and my mask had dried out enough to wear once more. We had covered my packs by putting them in Candaith’s tent while we’d been gone, and afterward, we used the tarp we’d carried him down upon to cover them further in case of more rain. Neeker didn’t seem to mind being wet, but all the same, I had removed his tack and used some of the brush to curry him before and after he had dried. It wasn’t the best solution, but we had little choice in the matter. I slipped the mask through my belt once Neeker was ready to ride once again, and I had mounted. Candaith offered a reminder to us in his last words: “The Forsaken Inn is located south-west from here on the border of the Midgewater March and the Lone-lands along the Great East Road.” He had risen to his feet by then and pointed in the direction we needed to go. It was the same way that he had vanished when we needed a translation of the Black Speech in the message I’d brought back for him, I noted.

We rode for most of the day over the hills of the Lone-lands in Weathertop’s shadow before spotting a rundown building near the road in the late afternoon distance. “That must be it,” Dandelion said as he pulled our steeds to a temporary halt.

“Gadaric Munce,” I murmured as a reminder. I had to blink as something about the inn struck me. “Is… that a giant hole in the roof?”

Dandelion leaned forward on the horse, which was honestly much too big for her, and squinted ahead. “It is,” she determined. “You’re not seeing things.”

“How in the blazes is it an inn if it floods whenever the rains come?”

“And the snows,” she added. “It’s impossible to keep warm at night. It’s open to travelers, though. Or it used to be.”

I shook my head. “Has it always had that hole?” I asked as I started Neeker trotting ahead once more.

She bounced on the oversized saddle as she caught up to me. “It didn’t when I passed through ages ago when I returned to Bree to settle down.” She chuckled breathlessly. “You can offer to fix it for them. Maybe that will help them trust you.”

A small group of people stood outside of the inn as we made our way across the East Road from the stable set off several paces away. I didn’t stop to ask them anything, and they didn’t stop us to talk to us, but I had settled my mask over my face once more and that may have kept their curiosity at bay. I noticed that the Forsaken Inn had a mail area just off the steps leading to its front veranda. Next to it stood a board not unlike the one in Bree, and as I had a better look at the sodden postings on it, I saw they were generally some forms of task or bounty. They would need reposting now that the rains had marred them all. A man in a rocking chair sat whittling as we moved through the creaking front door into the darkness beyond.

The only lights inside came from the fireplace and the hole in the roof above, but the sun was headed for the horizon at this point, and it left the interior gloomy. A single barmaid roamed around and, as I surmised, the central area sat mildewed, warped, and generally uninhabitable. I peered up at the roof regardless and Dandelion commented, “I wonder how that happened?”

“Small dragon, I’m sure,” I replied with a snort. Turning my attention to the room once more, I found a barefoot dwarf with his feet on a table leaned back off to one side along with a few Eglain. More of them dotted the area here and there with the innkeeper at the bar in the far right side from the doorway. The closest man to use glanced away from where he stood speaking with his partner and then turned back to him.

Bold of them to assume I won’t just march up and say something, I mused as I did just that. “Pardon me, but I’m looking for a man named Gadaric Munce.”

Both men stopped to eye me with more than a little hostile wariness. Like a ripple effect, others in the area went quiet and studied me with the same suspicion. “Nobody here by that name,” the first man’s companion snapped at us. “You should move along, now.”

I rolled my eyes. “Oh, sure, cleared orcs off of Weathertop and got sent here to find Munce, and now I’ll just hop right back out the door based on your word.”

Dandelion tugged at my sleeve gently. “Grandson,” she murmured, causing the two men to frown at her in confusion, “perhaps you should remove your mask if you mean to earn their trust as Candaith warned.”

The second man seemed to perk up his ears at mention of the Ranger. “Candaith, you said?” he asked as I sighed and removed the mask. He flickered a look up and up at me, held it for a moment, and then looked back at Dandelion as if trying to piece together some puzzle.

I smirked at him and ran a hand back through my dark hair. “You won’t figure her out. Trust me.”

He blinked and looked up at me again as his eyes narrowed. He was on the defensive again. “You must be the one the Ranger spoke of. I’m Gadaric Munce.”

I lofted a brow at him. “You just said he wasn’t here, though. Now, which of those is the lie? I can’t very well trust you enough to earn your trust if you start out like that, can I?”

The hobbit sighed. “Morchandir,” she said firmly before turning back to Gadaric. “I’m Dandelion Digweed, a Guardian. This is my grandson, Morchandir. Candaith sent us to you saying you know where Radagast the Brown might be. We’re searching for him urgently on a mission.”

Gadaric’s mouth twisted up slightly. When he finally answered, it was to say, “Candaith is a good man who has taken a chance by giving us his word that you can be trusted.” He crossed his arms at his chest and glowered at Dandelion. He attempted to do so for me but our difference in height made it as ludicrous as it felt for me. “For his sake and our continued friendship with him, I hope that you are worth the risk.”

“For his sake and everyone’s continued safety, I hope we can find Radagast quickly,” I growled. “I don’t make it a habit to go traipsing around after wizards on missions from other wizards, trust me.”

Gadaric’s frown deepened. “You mentioned orcs on Weathertop and now two wizards. What madness have you….” He shook his head. “No matter. It’s not for us to say or get involved in, though we might help you on your way. We are simple people who wish to remain apart from society, but there are efforts that all must undertake to survive, and we will ask you for assistance to prove that you are worthy.”

There’s that “worthy” bit again, I noted internally with growing irritation. “Everyone is worthy of helping,” Dandelion said with a curtness that meant business. “Your reasons for remaining apart from society are your own, but we wouldn’t be here bothering you if it weren’t important, just as my grandson stated.”

“Then you’ll have no reason not to help us in order to earn our trust,” Gadaric’s friend interjected with a single nod. “And from the sounds of it, if you managed to clear out orcs from Weathertop…”

“A mountain troll, too,” I remarked distantly. “Some wargs. Bloody big one.” I looked back at the men. “Do you have a pail for washing clothes, by the way? Mine are still… filthy with warg guts.”

Dandelion rolled her eyes. “Morchandir…”

The man speaking faltered at the additional information before recovering. “If that’s the case, then helping us with the goblins and wargs and spiders in Minas Eriol should be no trouble for you. But it will show us that you mean us no harm while aiding us in our survival. If it’s important that you find Radagast the Brown, then it’s important that you help the Eglain in their struggles.”

“Fine,” I replied stiffly. “But we’ll be staying here at the inn until you’re satisfied. Hopefully not before whatever evil is east of here spreads to us and makes it a moot point.”

“Good luck,” Gadaric replied as he dropped his arms back to his sides. “You’ll need it, long-shanks.”

A Burg’s Tale: Chapter 21

After fighting a few other orcs and goblins along the path, Dandelion and I found Candaith once again. The hobbit rushed to his side upon seeing how he looked. Even I had to say that the Ranger had me worried as to his health and safety. I moved to his other side and helped Dandelion support him, given his larger size made it awkward at best for her, and asked, “Candaith, what happened?”

He offered a faint smile to us. “You have done well, Morchandir, better than I, it appears. Uruk-hai and Orcs nearly bested me and my wounds run deep.” Dandelion began to protest when he waved her to silence. The top of the hill lay just in front of us, gated at the path’s end, and the sounds of orcs and worse could be discerned behind it. “But you must not concern yourself with me now. Beyond that gate is the Uruk who leads this force. Pass through the gate and defeat him. We cannot allow these Orcs to have a hold in the north.”

I didn’t recognize the term. “Uruk?”

“Orc. Goblin. Another name for them,” Candaith offered quickly. “The strongest of the Dark Lord’s soldiers.”

I snorted. “Great. As if the ones up to now haven’t been hard enough to kill.”

He smiled faintly again, but Dandelion shook her head. “Young man, we have to get you help. I can’t let you die of your wounds while we faff about with these orcs.”

“No, Gammer,” Candaith replied somberly. “Even if my injuries were mortal, I would ask you to finish this. I would die in service protecting these lands, just as my forebears have since the fall of Numenor when we first came to these shores.” He looked toward the gate. “We press on. I’m in no danger of death at this point, and we have a duty to uphold. These creatures should not be here in the Lone-lands.” He stood on his own and loosened his grip on us so that we could walk forward, and we let him do so.

We didn’t get far before the Ranger wobbled and collapsed to one knee, clutching his side. “I fear my injuries are greater than I expected, friends.” His mouth thinned into a line. “I had meant to help you fight.” He struggled back up to his unsteady feet. “I will open the gate and hold the rear guard. I will remain here to stop the enemy, should they decide to flee.” He laid hands on the latch to the gate and looked toward us. “Be prepared for anything.”

“You keep saying that like we’ll forget,” I replied with an arch of one brow.

We didn’t move right away. The voices beyond the gate increased in volume as Candaith eased the latch free. A deep, harsh voice ordered, “Pick up the pace, you sluggards!”

A much less harsh one answered him. “What’s the hurry, Rigûl? The hill’s ours….”

The first voice, most likely the uruk Rigûl, answered, “That’s the half of it, toad! We’ll not keep Sharkû waiting!” There it is, again, I noted, startled. Even Candaith hesitated for a moment in his actions when he heard the name. Rigûl then demanded, “Get down the hill and bring up the logs. We’ve a pyre to build.”

The second orc snarled back, “Get them logs up with what? You talk too big, Rigûl.” Just like a commander, I thought with a slight smirk. As long as they aren’t doing the heavy lifting, they don’t care how it’s done so long as it is.

But I was in for a shock. We all were. Rigûl said, “Use your head. you worthless slug!” Candaith freed the latch and stepped aside as he pulled the gate loose with a whispered, “Be cautious!” We stepped through even as Rigûl finished by saying, “Get Olog-snaga down there and put him to work!”

Candaith suddenly hissed from behind us, “No, wait! Abort the mission!”

Too late, one of the orcs had spotted us in the opened entrance. He drew his weapon and that, in turn, drew the uruk’s attention toward us. A sharp-toothed smile cut across his features beneath his helm as he lifted his head to sniff. “Man-flesh? Let’s take a look, boys!” His weapon, a hammer, matched the shield he lifted from the ground as he paced toward us. “And a little bite-sized creature, too. A pet?”

Dandelion bristled. “I am no pet. He’s just very tall. And he’s a Hobbit, not a Man.”

That seemed to amuse the uruk if his sudden guffaw was any indication. “Saruman will reward me for your heart! I’ll skin you both alive.”

They attacked immediately, the two orcs coming in from the sides and Rigûl charging toward us from the center. “Feel the might of the Uruk-hai!” he bellowed as he swung his hammer toward us. He meant to split us apart so that his lesser orcs could face us directly, but Dandelion stood resolutely and blocked the hammer-blow with her own shield. I ducked slightly aside, scored a hit on his hammer-arm, and whirled to slash at the White Hand orc moving in from my side of the fray. The uruk’s roar of pain masked Dandelion’s grunt from the force of the hammer landing on her shield, but it gave her time to block the second orc’s attack on her as well.

I had to keep an eye on the uruk over the orc. Both lesser minions had axes, one double-handed and the other single, but I could let my armor take a blade over a hammer’s force. Leather armor wasn’t meant to soften that kind of blow. My bones would crush just as readily even if it took a bit more than not having armor at all. I grunted with a wince as I avoided another of Rigûl’s swipes and came into contact with an axe across my back. It staggered me forward and I used the momentum to my advantage. I turned it into a rolling dodge that left me behind the uruk, who had found himself beset by a tiny little terror in armor.

Dandelion had disarmed her opponent and left him sprawling, half-conscious, so that she could body-check the uruk. It looked hilarious, actually, and seemed to confuse the leader that she could get him to step backward with the strength of her impact. I took that moment to stick a knife in the back of one of his knees to help bring him down and slow him so that the Guardian could get in a few more shots. In, then out again, the blade bloodied, and I twisted away from the axe-wielding orc’s blow after. I had learned, given my size compared to others, that my knees and other joints were my weakness with smaller opponents. Bring the stronger, taller, faster enemy down to the ground, though, and things went in your favor. I’d had it used on me enough in training to use it against others, even if they were smaller than I was, because the theory worked regardless of their size. I kicked out at his closest knee as a result to get him crippled just like the uruk who led them.

With Rigûl distracted by Dandelion, I focused on the White Hand orc instead. He couldn’t use his broken knee; that didn’t mean he wasn’t ignoring the pain and trying to do so regardless. Orcs, I saw, seemed impervious to things of that nature and somehow used it to their advantage to fuel their rage. Even if it meant their death, an orc would lean into a mortal blow if it would allow them to kill their opponent. I got to my feet just in time to avoid a close call from the uruk, who was still upright despite my knife to the tendons and had sent Dandelion flying backward several feet. With the second orc stirring from his hobbit-induced stupor, I knew I needed to thin the playing field fast. Thankfully, with one orc down to one leg, baiting Rigûl to charge and swing was easy – and so was moving so that his minion missed me with his axe, but Rigûl bashed in his orc’s head instead.

The movement did have Rigûl’s leg crumpling beneath him, though, so I got out of his range to focus on the other orc. Dandelion was getting back to her feet at that point, too, and I knew we would win. “Get him, Gammer!” I called to her as she shook her head and squinted at the enemy. I rushed past her to deal with the minion, who was slowly getting to his feet, in a fast and lethal way. The Guardian took only another moment to do as I’d said and dashed for Rigûl.

The uruk seemed to realize his perilous position. “I’ll not be beaten by you!” he defied us. “I’ve a little surprise!”

We hadn’t spotted the large cage off to one side in the chaos of battle beginning, but we most surely heard when one of the orcs still not in the fight threw it open and the mountain troll inside howled out its rage. Swinging its fists, it sent its captors flying and stormed toward us. “Now you die!” Rigûl crowed and swiped at Dandelion with his hammer.

I brought my knife up from where I’d put it into my victim’s throat and stared at the monstrosity they’d unleashed. I got up from where I’d been kneeling on the orc’s chest and skittered backward. I had heard legends of trolls even if I’d never seen one. Terrifying, strong, able to rip apart a man with their bare hands, and frozen into stone by the sun. Too bad it’s night and stormy, I noted with fatalistic shock. I could only savagely curse before moving to help Dandelion with Rigûl.

Calling for Candaith wouldn’t help. He was too wounded to be of any use, even if he could work on cleaning up any orcs who might still be trying to escape. The troll reached down as it came to the end of the chain binding its legs to its prison and began to wrench himself free of his bindings. We only had a few moments.

Rigûl knew it too. Even as he struggled to get back onto his feet, I feinted at him and Dandelion crashed her shield into the back of his good leg to put him back on the ground. “Saruman will find you!” he snarled just before my blade took out his throat.

I had no time to feel anything from his words. Saruman the White? Why would an uruk care if he found me? I wondered as the squealing noise of chains being torn off their hinges interrupted my thoughts. Dandelion looked at the troll, too. We were both panting and sweating; rain-drowned and bloodied. “What do we do?” I asked her.

“Grab that one-handed axe just in case,” she explained. “I’ll keep its attention. Bleed it and harry it. Bring it down bit by bit.” She flashed me a quick, sharp grin. “Like eating an oliphaunt.”

I rolled my eyes. “Leave it to a hobbit to make it about food,” I replied. I did nod after, though. “Fine. I’ll be after its legs and attack from behind while you keep it facing forward.”

“Watch the arms,” she told me as she moved forward. “It has a long reach, especially with that weapon it’s picked up. And use the fire, if you can.” Sun, fire, light, it made sense to me.

I nodded and darted toward the campfire they had going, searching for a torch, while the hobbit moved in with a yell. “Hey, ugly!” Dandelion taunted the troll. “Your face makes an onion cry!” I blinked at her insult attempt. An onion? I asked silently as I poked a large branch meant for tinder into the fire to get it alight.

The troll just looked at her with its mouth slightly agape, not quite understanding the taunt. Dandelion tried again. “You can eat apples through a fence!” That made it growl at her and lift its large axe, but it still seemed perplexed by her words rather than full of rage.

She grew frustrated. “Oi! You look like you were drawn with my left hand!” It stepped toward her, and I mentally hurried the branch to catch on fire already. “You’ve the brains of a waterlogged sack of taters!” I pulled it from the fire and started to move to my right as the troll moved left and up, following Dandelion’s path as she backed away. She had to turn its back to me for this to work. “Your mother was a turtle and your father was a slug!” I hurriedly moved in to set its loincloth on fire with the burning end of my branch. As it smouldered into life, Dandelion paused, pointed at the troll, and then declared triumphantly, “You serve Eru Ilúvatar!”

That did it. The creature bellowed and charged in, swinging its weapon at the Guardian. The fetid cloth it wore around its waist would burn rapidly enough. Dandelion ducked away from the swing to keep its attention while I looked for a bow. I wasn’t the greatest of shots, but I had an idea that would help us. Spotting one leaned against a raised plinth of stone, I ran and snatched it up as well as the quiver beside it. From my position, I nocked an arrow, aimed for where the fire had begun burning the troll’s underside, up to its waist, and let fly with the first missile. It ended up in the heavy behemoth’s behind, where the flames could start burning it. The wood would burn longer than the cloth, for sure. It snarled and reached back to swipe at whatever had stung it, breaking some of the shaft, but Dandelion bashed it on the knee so that it once again turned toward her.

I let fly with two more arrows before I moved in again. Bleed it, the Guardian had instructed, and I meant to do just that. It swung its weapon overhand to crash the end into the place where Dandelion had been standing a moment before. I took the chance to hack at one of the mighty thews in an attempt to hamstring it on that side to only partial success. It had very thick skin that required quite a bit of force to penetrate. Even so, blood spilled from the gash, and I had to dive for cover as it swung around to try and backhand me.

This became our dance routine, with Gammer taunting and bashing the troll so that it would strike out at her, then I would come in and stab or slice its legs and knees and calves so it would turn to me, and Gammer would wound it with her own weapon or her shield. Once, I took its attention for long enough that Dandelion could take up the bow that I’d abandoned — and she proved a most accurate shot with it as she set several arrows in its chest and shoulders. She was no elf, though, and her accuracy was simply better than my own as a result. The fire had begun to die off of the troll when I finally spotted my chance: the creature sagged in exhaustion at last, its motions grown slower, and I used one of the great stone plinths to my advantage. Bouncing off of it, I swung the two-handed axe I’d taken from one of the dead orcs and planted it into the back of the troll’s head from behind. For a moment, it grasped wildly at the large weapon’s haft, tugging at it, and I feared that not even a battle-axe could find its way through the thing’s flesh or that it actually had no brain to speak of in its skull. Slowly, though, Olog-snaga released it, stepped forward, and fell bonelessly to the ground, dead.

Only silence reigned in the orc camp crowning Weathertop. I, who had landed on my feet and rolled away, lay on my side just breathing while Dandelion did the same a short distance away. The storm had passed while we fought. The rain had lightened and stopped while the lightning had grown distant. Finally, Candaith limped in from outside the gate.

Dandelion was the first to move, again, but I wasn’t far behind. “You should sit by the fire a moment,” she instructed him. “We have the time, now, and I can bind up the damage they’ve done.”

He shook his head. “I’ve taken care of that already. My wounds are grievous, but I shall recover.” He motioned for us. “Come, we shall return to my camp.” As we approached him, he said, his voice abruptly wavering and then fading, “You did very well, friends.” By the end, he had collapsed with a gentle, “Unh….” that left him mostly unconscious.

Dandelion checked him quickly and then noted where he had been hurt. “Morchandir, we need to get him down the path, and he’s not in the proper shape to help us help him.”

I made a noise. “Better and faster if I go down to where the warg-keeper was and break down those tarps they had up. I can bring those and the ropes back up here to make a sledge for him. It’s easier for me to pull him down than carry him and much easier for you to help if we need it, that way.”

She nodded. “Hurry, grandson. We don’t know if we’ve killed all of the orcs, wargs, and goblins on this hillside. I’d rather not find out the hard way that we’ve not.”

I left her to guard Candaith’s prone form and headed back down to fetch our needed materials. I’d be more than ready for some hot tea and an equally hot bite of food to eat from the stores by the time we arrived. You’ll regret being alive tomorrow morning after the beatings you’ve taken tonight, I mused privately, knowing I was lying to myself. Mostly. At least, I would be alive to regret being alive.

A Burg’s Tale: Chapter 20

Thunder rolled across the landscape without warning as the breeze, which had picked up in the gloom to bring the scent of rain, dropped to silence once more. Lightning sparkled over the clouds overhead at a distance just yet as I watched. “Is it safe to go up Weathertop in this weather?” Dandelion asked Candaith with a wrinkled brow.

I looked down at her from behind my mask. I knew she couldn’t see the lofted brow I had at her question, but I knew that she could see my gesture at the path. “We’re already halfway to the top, Gammer,” I answered. “It’s a bit too late to back down now.”

Candaith nodded at me in agreement. “It’s also of the utmost importance that we do this tonight, before they have time to really dig in at the peak and the way up to it. So long as they’re unstable, we’ll have a much easier time for breaking their hold and sending them fleeing.” Lightning flickered a little closer, followed by thunder, and we all glanced toward it uneasily. “Just keep your eyes open. When it starts raining, the stones underfoot will grow slippery and there may be areas of runoff to unbalance you should you encounter them.”

We soldiered on. Solitary orcs and goblins fell quickly to our blades and Dandelion’s shield when we found them until the Ranger lifted a hand to halt our progression. “Wait here,” he told us softly. “In this nook, here, between these large stones. I’ll return shortly.” He set off into the gloom, vanishing immediately, and I gently pulled the hobbit into the darkness that would be our hiding place. The first drops of rain began to fall at last as we settled in. Aware of Dandelion’s armor and age, I loosed my cloak from around my neck to lift it over my head. Spreading my arms wide while holding the black fabric, I covered the both of us as best I could as the storm finally made it to our position. We might be dampened by it but not, for the moment, drenched. The hobbit Guardian didn’t seem to notice. Her attention remained on the path crossing us, complete with a distracted expression, for quite some time.

“Do you think that young man is staying safe?” she finally whispered to me through the sound of the rainfall.

A flash and a rumble of thunder kept me from answering immediately. “I believe so,” I replied at last. “He’s far better suited to this type of weather than either of us, as a Ranger.” I wasn’t entirely sure of his age, either; given Rangers were longer-lived than the rest of us, Gammer’s “young man” might be as old as she was and not look a day past twenty-five. I supposed it might be a little older than that, but I wasn’t about to nitpick over something that didn’t matter.

She said nothing. A moment after, she tipped her head up to regard me looming over her and frowned slightly. “I won’t melt if I get wet, Morchandir,” she stated firmly. “Save the strength in your arms for the orcs. Their armor is tough.”

“Which is why I don’t punch through it,” I said with a smirk. “I go around it. Besides, if you catch a chill, your adventuring days with me are done while you recover. By then, I’ll be leagues away fulfilling my duties to that bloody wizard.”

“Nonsense,” she scoffed. “We hobbits are far too hardy a folk to catch a silly sniffle by mere rain alone. Pull your arms down, now, and let’s wait for Candaith to return with news.”

There was no arguing with her. Not that it stopped me from trying in a low tone, mind, but the futility of the action made itself known quickly when she reached up and pulled them down for me. I shifted the cloak again so that I could wear it properly before crouching near her.

“Are you two at it, again?” Candaith asked quietly from nearby just after I’d resettled. I simply rolled my eyes in the dark as he chuckled. His amusement faded quickly. “We must make haste, friends. We have the leaders of these Uruk-hai cornered like rats upon the slopes of Weathertop.” He motioned with one hand. “If we can defeat them, we may yet break the will of this war-band and drive them whimpering to their masters in the South. Be prepared for anything.’

We rose in the ceaseless wet. “Why have they come so far north? How have they managed it without anyone noticing?” Dandelion asked in frustration.

“Maybe the ones who did weren’t allowed to sound an alarm.” To Candaith, I asked, “And what masters in the South might have sent them up here?”

He shook his head. “You’re asking questions I have no answers for other than Sauron’s lieutenants,” he told the both of us. “But if he has the power to turn the eyes of those who might see his armies, then all may already be lost. The mystery may have an answer above us, or it may require more time than we currently have. We must ascend and quickly.”

We started off without further explanation. I felt that one of two things might be true at that moment: either Candaith knew or suspected something he didn’t want to share or our pertinent questions had no ready answers just yet. I wanted to believe the latter of him even if my innate distrust felt ruffled. My foot slipped on the wet stones a time or two before I caught myself. We pushed through a gate and moved onward. As we rounded yet another bend, the Ranger fell back to us to say, with a gesture further up the path, “Their leaders have all gathered on the hill.”

I was about to answer him when a reedy, harsh voice proclaimed, “Keep a close watch. We don’t want no surprises.”

Goblins, I thought even as Candaith pulled us aside into more cover. “Wait! Let the patrol move out of sight,” he commanded in a low hiss.

Another goblin came into view moments after. “Anything comes this way, and it’ll be sorry,” the creature promised with a mad little laugh.

An abrupt, if small and decidedly female, roaring bellow came from Dandelion as she rushed toward the enemy. Candaith cursed at the same time as I did. “Kill ‘em!” shrieked the first goblin. Then, spotting us behind her, it added, pointing, “Kill ‘em all!”

“Are you sure she’s not a very tiny dwarf?” the Ranger asked as he stepped forward in the Guardian’s wake.

“No,” I replied, unsheathing my long knives. “She thinks I’m her hobbit grandson, remember?”

Dandelion’s shield crashed into the skull of one of the goblins as Candaith grunted softly. “Good point.” He dodged the second creature’s swipe at him with its weapon, and I left him to it to focus on the hobbit… even though she didn’t seem to need my aid. A shield was really no match for an armed opponent, surely? Remembering Dandelion’s singular reaping of the orcs in Bleakrift, however, I then wondered if I was even necessary in this fight what with the hobbit’s and Ranger’s skills. Given the fight was done moments later with two dead White Hand conscripts before I could even engage, I had my answer and sheathed my knives.

“You shouldn’t charge in like that,” I told her sternly. “Candaith was giving us a plan of attack.”

She narrowed her eyes up at me. “Don’t you sass me, young man,” she warned. “I’ve been doing this longer than you’ve been alive.”

I snorted. “If you’ve never listened to someone’s orders, that is a true wonder,” I retorted perhaps a bit sharply.

Candaith cleared his throat. “Besides, you only have a shield, Gammer,” he pointed out in a bid to save me from another switching, most likely. “The offensive capabilities are limited.” He paused. “Though you do wield it with greater strength than I thought possible.” For a hobbit, I knew he wanted to say.

The deflection seemed to work. Dandelion made a grumpy noise and shouldered her battered buckler as she turned away. “I’m a Guardian. If I hit you with my shield, I want it to work.”

“Fair enough,” the Ranger agreed. “Just try not to rush in. I know you feel the need to protect your grandson,” to which I shot him an evil glare, “but remember I’ve scouted ahead.”

She fell silent as we walked in the rain before finally sighing. “Very well,” she relented. I had to admire her bloodthirstiness. That much, we could agree on. I hadn’t met many hobbits in my time, but the ones I had weren’t as prone to finding violence that satisfying. To be honest, Dandelion didn’t seem to enjoy it, either, except in the defense of others. I had to commend her commitment to the idea that I was her flesh and blood and worth killing for even if it was still ludicrous.

We moved on until a rickety-looking wooden gate started to materialize from the gloom. Candaith waved us toward one of the lighted half-covered torches sizzling in the rain. “What do you think?” he asked us as we kept out of sight of the two goblin groups to each side of the barrier, left and right, milling around.

I turned my attention to the lighting. “Oil-based,” I pointed out to them after a moment. The scent of its burning and the rain’s attempts to kill it produced an acrid bite to the damp air that tickled my nose. “Wood won’t light easily in this rain and there isn’t enough wood to spare in the Lone-Lands to use it on open fires.” My eyes moved to a nearby pyre of unlit wood. “They came prepared.”

Candaith motioned toward the wooden formation. “Those are for emergency signals, I’m sure. They’ll have their campfires protected somehow, like mine usually is. You build it a certain way and use tinder that lights no matter what.” He brightened. “That’s an idea…”

“What is?” Dandelion asked, blinking rain from her eyes as she looked up at him. I gently moved my cloak to cover her slightly again, and she reached out to poke me in the thigh. “I’m an old woman and your Gammer, not a young hobbit lass to be courted.” Her roughened voice softened. “But thank you, Morchandir.”

The Ranger half-smiled as he motioned to the burning light. “This torch may prove useful. One of you take it.” He nodded at the pyre. “Perhaps we can light a fire to draw the goblins’ attention. We might split their forces. Be prepared for anything.”

Dandelion nodded slowly. “It would be much easier to fight three of them than six or more all at once. Do you think that wet wood will light?”

He made a noise. “On its own? No. It would work too slowly, as wet as it is. But as Morchandir said, these torches have oil in them. Water and oil do not mingle. Oil remains above if you put them into a glass container together. The water rolls away when placed atop it. The rain should not hinder it much if we can get it started. We need it to light and burn quickly.”

“Or quick-ER than wet wood might,” I added, pulling off the torch from its stave.

“Careful,” Dandelion cautioned. “You’ll burn yourself.”

The signal pyre had a strange construction to it that I recognized from my travels and from Candaith’s own firepit. I could only hope the tinder left inside would be enough as I tipped some of the oil onto the wood before pushing the flaming end within to light it ablaze. It steamed slightly before fulfilling my wish. I didn’t bother pulling the torch out; instead, I left it within to help with the combustion. We retreated to a place just out of the way to set up our ambush once the flames had begun to truly build strength.

Sure enough, one of the goblin groups rushed toward the pyre with weapons brandished as they looked around for their companions. It made killing them much faster. The ones left near the gate put up slightly less of a fight given they hadn’t expected the enemy to leap from the shadows. We stayed hidden for a few minutes after in order to make sure their deaths hadn’t brought more of them down upon us. Only then did we emerge and Candaith threw open the gate.

Shortly after passing through it, we again halted. The Ranger pointed ahead. “The road diverges ahead,” he explained to us. “We will need to split up.”

“Are you sure about this?” Dandelion asked worriedly.

He nodded. “I shall follow the trail to the right, you follow the path to the left. If all goes well, we will meet again upon the peak of Weathertop. Wait until I have passed from sight before you proceed.” He turned to us. “Remember the torches. We may avoid a skirmish or two.”

I shook my head. “I don’t like this, Candaith,” I growled. The unease in me was growing. “You alone? I would rather you take Gammer with you. I have my stealth to hide me.”

He opened his mouth to reply, but Dandelion beat him to it. “Absolutely not, grandson! The last time I left you alone, one of those filthy orcs nearly throttled you to death! I’ll not have it!”

“You’ll need her to help defend you,” Candaith finished with a little smirk. “We need to be swift. These Orcs must be driven out of the Lone-lands. I have no time to explain why we have to part here and meet again at the top of Weathertop.”

Dandelion made an irritated sound. “You young whelps, always thinking you know better than your elders.”

He chuckled. “I will travel to the right. You take the path to the left. Use the torches you find on the unlit pyres along the path. They may draw the attention of the nearby Orcs.”

I frowned. “We understood the first time,” I replied.

He looked at Dandelion for a long moment before he returned his gaze to mine, and I understood the unspoken intent. The stubborn hobbit couldn’t pretend not to have heard him if he repeated it. “If you come across Bûb-hosh or Muz, the Warg-keeper, defeat them. They’re some of this group’s leaders.” He turned away and began to walk off to the right side path. Dandelion moved as if to start down the left at the same moment, but I reached out to pull her back by the shoulder. She was being incredibly bull-headed about listening to others at the moment, and I had no idea why.

“After he’s out of sight,” I reminded her. My hand was big enough to cover her shoulder and part of her upper arm, small as she was.

I had little time to marvel about it before she patted my gloved hand. “I’m feeling impatient to end this task,” she explained softly. “We need to be moving on. The faster you complete your mission for Gandalf, the faster you can come back home and settle down. I want great-grandchildren, and I have the perfect lass to introduce to you…”

I pulled my hand back as if I’d been burned. “Let’s move on,” I growled, stalking ahead before Candaith had really vanished. Dandelion might take that as agreement with her words, but I had no energy at the moment to correct her. I had given up my son to keep him from the truth of his criminal father’s life and his cruel mother’s apathy. Dandelion didn’t need to know her erstwhile grandchild murdered and thieved like a brigand for a living and enjoyed doing so. She could think of me as a hero just like everyone else, my son included. A lie for a lie. Even if her lie was unintentional in delusionally thinking I was her kin.

It wasn’t long before I realized why Candaith had sent Dandelion along with me. There was no way that I could have sneaked past the number of orcs and goblins along the left path; the right had to be less populated. Given Gammer’s refusal to leave my side, I could see why he would send us this way when we had to separate. Dandelion and I used the torches to our advantage and split the enemy’s forces up for easier defeating. By the time we made it to another gate along the path, we had our system down. She bashed and shoved while I stabbed and pounced from the darkness. The thing that took the most time was lighting the pyres enough for them to catch and burn without the rain extinguishing them too quickly.

The second gate crashed open unexpectedly as we fought a set of orcs. The armored figure, taller and heavier than the others, bellowed, “What’s all this ruckus, you curs?!”

I slammed a dagger home in my opponent’s heart and called to Dandelion, “I think we found Bûb-hosh, Gammer!”

I kept a weather eye on him as I faced down another orc. He didn’t charge in immediately. Instead, Bûb-hosh snarled at his forces, “Ungrateful worms! Sharkû will hear about this!” Only then did he seem to realize that his horde of underlings wasn’t fighting one another but an actual enemy. I filed away the name Sharkû in my head for later. Something about it sounded familiar. Perhaps that’s the mysterious leader sending these creatures north? I wondered briefly.

The orc obviously didn’t spot Dandelion in the fighting, only me, given he howled, “Your life ends now, Man!”

“Come and have a go, Booby!” I taunted him, causing him to run in with a roar of rage. I didn’t know what he was so angry about. Candaith had pronounced it for us and whatever the orc’s mother had been, she had named him.

He apparently didn’t expect Dandelion’s shield to crash into his kneecaps from behind ten seconds into our fight, though. His loss of balance gave me a chance to strike a non-lethal, yet quite deep, blow around his polearm that seemed to rattle him. Staggering back, his weapon falling from his grip as Dandelion snapped her shield up to break his arm with the item, the orc leader turned to run from us. “Fly, fly from here! We are defeated!” As he passed back through the gates he had broken down to come out to us, he ordered the goblins within, “Avenge me, worms!”

“He’s not getting away that easily,” Dandelion stated resolutely. The goblins came for us and we met them at the gate. After dispatching them quickly, we continued inside once I had retrieved my weapons. I would need them in our pursuit of Bûb-hosh.

We found him in a covered area at the end of a dead-end path along Weathertop and dispatched him. What should have been an epic fight ended without true hardship for us or our weapons. I knew there was no sense in cleaning them yet given the top still loomed above us and the enemy filled the path to it. We backtracked toward the gate and found a split from it leading to another wooden barrier. There sat another pyre and torches waiting. We would have to get through the gate to continue, but we saw no sign of other enemies waiting for us. “I suppose we don’t need this one,” I told Dandelion.

She shook her head. “I’m not so sure, Morchandir. Light it regardless.” I began to protest before following her wishes. Whatever stood on the other side, we could defeat it. We had done well thus far on our own.

Nothing happened for almost a minute. The span was long enough that I had started toward the gate with the intent to open it myself when a soft commotion came from the other side. Just before I reached it, the entrance flew open, and I heard a goblin screech before I saw it. By then, I barely had the time to dive sideways out of range as I saw it throw something at me. “Move, Gammer!” I shouted to warn her, hoping it wasn’t too late. Whatever it was, I knew it wasn’t a knife or a pillow, which left any number of dangerous options in between.

Whatever it was, it slammed into the ground and exploded into a burst of fire that scorched the earth and caught the plants alight that had poked through Weathertop’s craggy exterior. It seemed indifferent toward rock and stone, too, burning obstinately on them despite their presence. It has to be something flammable like oil, then, I thought as I stared at it. But why did it explode so aggressively? Oil doesn’t do so.

I had no time for further contemplation on the matter as the goblins came for us. For me, first, since I was closest. I hadn’t had a chance to see if Dandelion had made it out of the fire weapon’s range and could only hope she wasn’t injured too severely.

I need not have worried as the hobbit Guardian came bouncing off a boulder nearby with her shield ready. She flew through the air toward the goblins with a shriek of “Raaaahh!” that halted them in their tracks with wide eyes. One small bomb for another, I mused, springing from a crouch to tackle one of the terrified goblins to the ground near the blazing fire. I lost my grip on him so that he tumbled back alone while I landed with a grunt just short of the border of the fires while one of his feet scuffed beyond them. With a pained, shocked screech, the creature leaped forward again, flames already catching along his scant clothing all the way up his body despite not touching the ground, and I stared yet again at the potency of whatever the weapon had been. It could set things ablaze without effort or contact? “Stay out of the fire!” I shouted to Dandelion as I pushed myself back to my feet.

“As opposed to?” she called back as her shield spikes hammered home on the goblin.

It fell and I replied, “Stepping into it accidentally, Gammer. I didn’t mean you’d do it intentionally.” I pointed at the burning goblin. “It barely touched inside it with one foot and now look. I don’t know what it is that they’re using in those things they’re throwing, but I don’t suggest we find out the hard way.”

We put the thrashing, maddened goblin out of its misery before moving past and up the twisting path. Not too much farther, we both halted at the sight of a large wolf-like creature sniffing the ground and rocks near more goblins. Gammer grabbed my wrist tightly and pulled me to the side. When she spoke, her grit teeth and the hiss in her tone told me she wasn’t a fan of these beasts. “Wargs. Small enough but still lethal. Wherever there are goblins, you can bet there are wargs somewhere nearby.”

I peered toward them with a thoughtful frown. “That’s what they are? They look like big wolves,” I admitted. “We’ve killed wolves. What makes these different?” I hadn’t come across any in my travels, even as a guard, though I’d heard of them.

“They get much, much larger than these. Uglier, too.” Her grip on me loosened slowly. “They run in packs. Some can speak — they’re far smarter than simple wolves. The Dark Lord twisted them like he did so many other things and many of them have evil powers. They have stealth that can rival an elf Hunter’s or best it.” She turned her gaze up to me with concern. “Grandson, I’ve met few other hobbits out and about in the world. I do know this, though: wargs and hobbits are seemingly mortal enemies. We can sense their presence the best, and they seem to delight in hunting us for sport over other races. I even heard several tried to attack Shire hobbits not long ago! Can you just imagine…”

I hadn’t seen her fret quite so much about anything, before. Orcs and goblins enraged her so that she assaulted them fearlessly. Spying crebain held no thrall over her. Wargs, though… I looked back at the monstrous things and pressed my lips together. “Well, then, this should prove interesting for me,” I finally told her as lightly as possible. “My skills against their own.”

“Morchandir,” she growled, but I shook my head. “Gammer,” I interrupted her, “we don’t have a choice. I’m not about to walk into this dreading it so that I seal my fate. I understand your concerns. I just think we’re better than they are, and they won’t best us.” I flashed her a smile beneath my mask that she couldn’t see and patted her hand. “Let’s get this over with. We’re almost there.” I sighed. “Which is good, because this constant fighting is exhausting.”

I ducked out and behind the stones one way while Dandelion gave me a count of thirty. The rain held scents close to the ground or whipped them away when the wind picked up. One of the large wargs lifted its head to sniff the air as it caught a scent and growled in confusion as that scent almost immediately escaped it. Another warg lying on the ground nearby lifted its head lazily to look at its companion but otherwise remained still. It had just flopped its head down again with a sigh when Dandelion’s cry echoed in the air. She charged in while the warg scrambled to its paws with a snarl mirrored by the startled second beast.

That one was my target, though. Dandelion’s shield cracked against the lazy warg’s head to daze it while I leaped from my boulder to stab the other through its ribs. I vaguely knew the location of its heart and lungs; after all, it was as much a four-footed brute as a deer or other game animal. The Guardian might not have had enough reach to get around the beast’s barrel, small as she was, but I could hug the bloody thing, lift it, throw it, with far less effort. Not a lack of effort, of course, given wargs looked quite stoutly built. My knives slid through flesh, glanced off the ribs, and into organs. Heart and lungs, lacerated or punctured — I didn’t care which it was, so long as it crippled and killed the beast. It staggered beneath my weight as the force of my forward motion carried me past it and toward Dandelion, tearing my knives along with it. I wasn’t fussed with the neatness of the kill.

Another swipe of her shield and Dandelion had her warg victim on the ground. Her killing blow to its neck seemed a little more vicious than those she used on the goblins and orcs. I refused to fault her for the venom and aggression; after all, if what she’d said was true, they would’ve played with her messily if they’d caught her, denying her even that level of mercy before death took her. All the same, I slit its throat to make sure it wouldn’t fool us and come from behind.

“More up ahead,” she grunted toward me with a nod further up the slope. Figures moved in the dark and rain, briefly lit by lightning, and we moved on. I had a feeling, as more wargs attacked and fell to our combined tactics, that Muz might be a warg or goblin. Surely, he’s here somewhere? I worried privately as we rested, hidden, for a few minutes.

When I spotted two wargs and a goblin figure just beyond underneath a shelter, I knew I had my answer. “Wargs first,” Dandelion instructed near my ear. “No torches to draw them out, here, though.”

“He’ll join in as soon as we attack the beasts,” I reminded her. “Let’s pull them down a little from him. Maybe we can separate them just long enough to even things up before he decides to make it his business.”

She hesitated and nodded at me in agreement. “Find me a set of stones,” she instructed. “I’ll bring them to us.” I needed no further permission to steal forward in the night while fumbling around for three rocks the size of Dandelion’s palm. I brought them to her and pressed them into her hand one after another before she motioned at me to move to another spot. Once I was ready, I watched her take aim and fire first one and then another of the rocks at the wargs, striking them in their side and haunches so that their attention diverted our way. She then turned and threw the final stone slightly up the incline to our right as they got to their feet. The rattling of the rock as it fell down drew them neatly into our presence to investigate, and we had them.

Their snarls as we attacked did draw Muz’s focus, however, though he didn’t call out right away. By the time the wargs were down, he had shuffled forward slightly as if to pierce the rainy night with his gaze. Finally spotting us approaching, he cried out, “I’ll feed you to the Wargs!”

“Bit too late for that,” I replied with a flick back toward their corpses. “We seem to have killed them all.”

The goblin didn’t react how I expected. Instead of screeching furiously and attacking at the loss of his precious minions, Muz laughed. “Careful,” Dandelion warned, shifting her weight uneasily at my side. She felt the strangeness of the situation, too.

“I’ve a surprise for you!” he said instead. “Throk-goth!” I had approximately one second to wonder if he had cursed at us or yelled for someone when the boulder beside him uncoiled. The latter, I realized. The warg whose eyes glittered in the flashing lightning bared fangs nearly as long as a woman’s index finger as he stalked forward. I wasn’t sure if it was thunder or his growling I heard.

“You really shouldn’t have,” I answered without missing a beat. “And I mean that honestly.”

Dandelion charged for Muz, who was in front of me, and I took her cue to go after Throk-goth. The confusion would work to our advantage. I would have to move fast to avoid the claws and teeth of the massive warg in front of me and had no time to worry about Dandelion. Dodging a snap of Throk-goth’s powerful jaws, I slashed at his shoulder in retaliation and scored first blood. Candaith hadn’t mentioned the warg. I doubted he had known Throk-goth existed, given he would’ve warned us about him, too.

The beast was fast. Too fast; he had whirled around and lashed out with a paw before I could fully regroup, and the swipe caught me a glancing blow on my shin. I snarled, myself, and feinted to the wounded side as if I might be off-balance. The trick worked: I plunged one knife into the warg’s muscled upper shoulder down to the hilt. It hadn’t gotten deep enough to hit a lung, most likely, but that hadn’t been my intention. No, I continued with my forward motion and hung onto the grip so that I could swing up and over the creature’s back. I had heard legends of goblins riding wargs, but I hadn’t figured the ones leading up to this point on Weathertop had been large enough. As I came to rest over his back, I drove my other dagger into an approximately similar place on the opposite side. Throk-goth released a higher-pitched noise of pain and surprise before bucking and spinning in place like an unbroken horse. He threw back his head to howl for aid from other wargs under his command while I held on for dear life. Grabbing a wildcat by the tail generally means you can’t let go, I reminded myself too late.

Throk-goth was stronger than he looked, given my size compared to his warg-keeper companion, but he stumbled rapidly as his adrenaline wore thin and he attempted to leap forward in order to shake me free. One hand lost its hold on the weapon in the warg’s shoulder because of the impact of the beast’s jaw with the ground. It was stout enough to travel straight up his spine so that I fell onto my back, still grasping the second dagger, parallel to the briefly stunned warg. The quiet scream from the creature alerted me as to how close its jaws were to my head at that point (while showing me, when I looked over, that he had nearly bitten his own tongue in half), and I took that moment to drag out a third knife from its sheath. As Throk-goth began to rise, I put the blade into his abdomen and tore upward, eviscerating him.

I definitely had no intention of letting go as hot blood rushed over my legs and the big warg’s agonized howls rang through the air. He still had enough energy, now that he was dying and knew it, to snap my head from my body with little effort. Instead, I sank the bloody knife back into him near the other one as he began to thrash, pulling myself as close to the stinking, furred form as possible so he couldn’t get the space to do any damage. So, that’s how you solve the problem of grabbing the saber-toothed cat by the tail, I mused as he dragged me around. You gut it and hang on for dear life near its head. Which, given the person had grabbed the tail, made no sense to the logical portion of my mind; thankfully, that bit was currently drowned out by the panicked screaming of the rest.

Dandelion’s shield spikes helped dispatch the frothing warg from out of nowhere. The first blow sent Throk-goth reeling to the ground and, in the process, loosened my hold on both knife hilts. Her second blow ended the creature’s life with a sickening crunch at his head. I lay there on my back, panting, as my limbs twitched. Her bruised face appeared over me and shielded me from the rain. “Grandson, are you hurt?” she asked.

“No… no, Gammer, I’m fine,” I replied after a moment. “I’m pretty sure I’ll have to throw out these clothes, though. I have warg guts all over my trousers.”

She tsked softly. “I’ll have them like new soon enough. You can bear with them a few hours, I think.” She offered her hand to me, and I accepted her help in sitting up. Only then did she let me have it. “Why in Eru’s name did you jump on its back?” she demanded in a slightly high-pitched voice. “Have you lost your mind, Morchandir? Whatever possessed you to do something so… so….” She flailed. “I blame your Took grandfather! That must be where you got that foolishness!”

I blinked at her without comprehension. “I… suppose?” Getting to my feet, I grimaced as I collected my daggers once more. In doing so, I found Muz had been killed rather than escaping. I nodded when I saw him and slid my daggers back into their homes. “Let’s move on,” I told the Guardian. “Candaith may need our help further above.”

Shifting the focus to our companion seemed to distract the hobbit from her ire with me. I admitted privately that she had a point about my idiocy even if her reason for being angry with me might be ridiculous. I wasn’t even sure what a Took was, to be honest.

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.”