Title: Orc in Ithilien Author: Draylon (draylon@hotmail.com) Pairing(s):Faramir / Shagrat Rating: NC17 Summary - see author's note. Author's Note: Chapters 12 to 14 of a continuing sequel to the story 'Captain of Mordor' (also available on LoM), in which Faramir of Gondor finds himself slashed with Shagrat, an Uruk, once again. Chapter 12. Not Particularly Sweet Mystery of Love The Orc stomped off to bed shortly after his conversation with the Hobbit ended. He lay on the ground among the pine-needles with his cloak – Faramir’s cloak – drawn up round his ears. Sleep came to him quickly and with it inevitably, a dream of his beloved Prince. It was a fairly faithful replaying of a scene that had taken place between them the day after their arrival at Faramir’s home in Ithilien. For various reasons this had made quite an impression on Shagrat, because strictly speaking it wasn’t just sex with Faramir – enjoyable as that was for him – that was so affecting to the Uruk. Aside from one or two past lapses, that the love-struck Orc was only too willing to forget about, Faramir was the only person who had ever treated him anywhere near decently, apparently to the extent of regarding him as an equal, and even Shagrat didn’t think he was deserving of that. So, that day, more to get Shagrat out of the house and from under the feet of the outraged household staff – many of whom were departing in droves - than anything else, Faramir had taken him on a tour of the palace grounds, citing a need to get fresh air into the lungs of the Orc as the main reason for their afternoon constitutional. Having difficulty keeping up with even the gentle pace set by Goldilocks, Shagrat searched for a convincing excuse for them to stop, but could only come up with the usual one. When they were well out of sight of the great house in a mossy hollow by the river, he’d pushed Goldilocks back against a massive, thick-boled tree - (‘Grey poplar’ said a voice in Shagrat’s head - quite correctly – though he ignored it) - and knelt down, greatly relieved to be getting the weight off his injured leg. Faramir asked him what he thought he was doing. “Come off it,” said Shagrat, “if you weren’t planning to have your wicked way with me when you dragged us all the way out here, well – then I don’t know what.” Busying himself with the front of the Prince’s breeches, he growled low in his throat as he made contact with Faramir’s blood-engorged member, and gave the head of it one or two preliminary licks. “Told you,” he said somewhat indistinctly a moment later, on account of his mouth being partially full of – well, Goldilocks. The Prince groaned as the Orc swallowed him down into his throat, and let himself enjoy Shagrat’s attentions briefly. There was no doubt about it; he was unfailingly enthusiastic when he did this. “Wait,” Faramir said with impressive resolve after a few seconds, pushing the Orc carefully away, “wait. You’re always putting me first - serving yourself last, I mean. I won’t have you feeling you keep having to do that.” Then he suggested that perhaps Shagrat could show him what he’d do for himself instead. Feeling shocked, Shagrat rocked back on his haunches and stared at the Prince. “You don’t want to watch me?” he said. “Not when –“ he hesitated, scandalised, and lowered his voice. “Not while I’m playing with myself? Pulling on my – my privates?” Faramir nodded, his eyes bright with enthusiasm. He found that he was strangely excited by the thought of the Uruk, aroused and pleasuring himself, down on his knees. “Yes,” he said quickly. “I’d very much like to see that, I think.” Shagrat wasn’t fussy. He’d learned to take his pleasure where he could and was used to catering for his own needs. It wasn’t an indulgence he partook in particularly often, but when he did a little judicious rubbing on whatever convenient surface presented itself was usually more than enough to bring him release. The Orc was in the habit of treating himself with quite needless austerity in this respect, as he had done for years, and he seriously doubted that the sight of his fumbling efforts to gratify himself by humping up against something would be anything close to what Faramir was expecting. That, combined with the fact that he would probably end up bringing himself off in about ten seconds flat meant that his coming demonstration promised to be the very definition of an anti-climax. So, he was muttering an excuse when the look on Goldilocks’ face stopped him short. Seeing that his companion was for some reason obviously keen on this made the Orc reconsider and opening his leggings, he took his erection in his hand. Not being used to company at such times he simply was embarrassed, and if when he drew his member out he wasn’t the hardest he had ever been, at least Goldilocks didn’t seem to notice. Eyeing him apprehensively, the Orc gave his cock a few self-conscious pulls. His recent experiences had made him extremely wary of humans and his position now was so vulnerable and exposed that in spite of himself, he couldn’t help but expect some sort of trick. Nothing terrible happened however so he stroked himself some more, moving his fingers over his shaft, pulling gently and sliding the head of it in and out of the hollow of his hand. This was rewarded by a low appreciative groan from Goldilocks, who dropped down to sit close beside him, but if Shagrat was hoping for a little assistance from the Prince, he didn’t get it. Faramir just kept watching his manipulations so intently that the discomfited Orc, convinced he could not possibly like what he was seeing shifted uncomfortably, wondering how he could get away. Goldilocks surprised him again though. From being beside him on his knees, Shagrat found himself deftly manoeuvred into position beside Faramir on his back. “I’d appreciate it Shagrat,” Faramir breathed into his ear, “if you would keep on ‘playing with yourself,’ as you just - so very eloquently - put it.” The Uruk could hear the amusement in his voice and certain he was being made a fool of was drawing breath to swear resentfully at him, but suddenly, whatever protests he had been formulating died an immediate death on his lips. The Prince had begun kissing his ear, playing his mouth over the pointed tip of it, and the effect this was having on Shagrat was startling. He did know about erogenous zones of course, but in a rather abstract sense, having never had much attention paid to any of his own. Goldilocks had found one of these long-neglected areas though, and was taking his time about exploring it thoroughly. “Carry on,” Faramir murmured encouragingly. “As you were, Captain. Best be getting back to work on -” he broke off, definitely laughing now but trying to hide it and spluttered out – “on - your privates!” He pressed his face against the Orc’s neck and his shoulders shook with silent mirth while he tried to contain himself. As a result of all this Shagrat was no longer fully in control of faculties, but he tried to do as he was told, and at long last Goldilocks decided to help him. He moved closer and rubbed the length of his cock against Shagrat’s, before gripping both organs tightly, over and around his companion’s hold on himself. His hands were very warm, and the increased friction that Faramir was generating as he rubbed their shared bundle of cocks and hands together quickly took effect. It was an odd and intense feeling, to be pleasuring oneself and at the same time to be attending so intimately to someone else and in very little time the stimulation proved too much for Faramir. “Shagrat!” he gasped against the Orc’s throat, while to his amazement his companion shuddered out a silent breath onto his neck, as he too found his release. Faramir, dazed and confused by the strength of the connection he’d felt – was still feeling, in fact - towards the Uruk, stayed where he was, lying half on top of him. “That was different,” Shagrat said quietly after a time, speaking into Faramir’s hair. “I’ve never done anything like that before. Not coming off that way with someone. Together, I mean.” Faramir could only agree with him, but was still too shaken to reply, and unfortunately Shagrat couldn’t see the expression on his face because he began back- pedalling at once. “I didn’t mean anything by it,” he said quickly. “I was just saying it was – well, it was nice, that’s all. I expect – I bet it’s like that for your lot every time though, isn’t it?” “No,” Faramir told him earnestly, picking himself up and propping his weight on his elbows, “it isn’t.” He wondered if was too soon to make his declaration to Shagrat, decided it probably was, and then went ahead and told the Uruk how he felt about him anyway. Someone who didn’t know the Orc as well as Faramir did might well have been disappointed by Shagrat’s total apparent lack of reaction, but actually the signs were all there for anybody who knew where to look. The Uruk’s face shut down completely at first while he darted a quick, searching look at Faramir, obviously not willing to believe his ears. The Prince could see from the fresh hunch in his shoulders and the way he was blinking so rapidly as he wrenched himself away immediately after that he had been profoundly affected by the news. Eventually he replied, but it was not to whisper sweet nothings into his companion’s ear. “I warned you about this,” Shagrat said gruffly, clearing his throat. The Orc was grumbling about the flannel shirt he was wearing, one chosen especially for him by the Prince because of the warmth and heavy softness of its material. True to form, he had channelled his strong emotions, and was expressing them in a more familiar vein - by finding a surrogate he could snipe about. Their combined orgasms had generated a copious quantity of sexual fluids, and while Faramir’s clothing had absorbed a share, Shagrat’s had undeniably borne the brunt of it. “With leather, if someone’s spunked all over you you can just swipe it off,” Shagrat continued, “or wait till it dries then flick the crust away. Look how this has all soaked in now. I’m never going to be able get all of it out.” This graphically descriptive insight into Orcish standards of good housekeeping would have been unwelcome at the best of times, but coming as it did at such an inopportune, emotionally charged moment – well, that was typical of Shagrat, and it stuck Faramir as being absolutely priceless. All at once the anxiety he’d felt, worrying he’d been too hasty, and said the wrong thing to the Orc drained out of him. He threw his head back and laughed and laughed and laughed. Shagrat watched him, grinning uncertainly. He didn’t mind, because Goldilocks was happy, and that was more than enough for him. The Prince in his merriment had smiled confidingly – joyfully - into Shagrat’s face, and when he’d done that the deep- etched lines of pain and sorrow and tension that were permanently fixed around his eyes and mouth had simply fallen away. He’d seemed years younger, the golden afternoon sunlight slanting down through the green branches above them having gilded out the premature strands of grey in his hair, and he’d looked for a moment very much as he had done during the first of his encounters with Shagrat. And just as he had then, the Orc had loved him, plain and simple. It was never something he’d been able to cater for or control. ***************** A long way off in time and space from that moment, Shagrat smiled to himself in his sleep, contented for a while to be dreaming of his Goldilocks. It was a pity that he would be able to remember little if any of it, the following morning. ***************** It might have been a coincidence, but many miles away in Ithilien, at around that exact same time, Faramir was enjoying a very similar dream. He was occupying Shagrat’s quarters, a move of rank sentimentality that had earned him further glares of disgust from his wife, and he came awake with a gasp, aroused and alone in the bed. The quarter moon was shining straight into his eyes, and a sharp, fresh breeze, clean and cold and scented with frost and pine-needles draughted into the stale air of the bed-chamber. The fresh air helped to clear his befuddled head a little, and moving unsteadily, he got out of bed and stood up. It was the first time that Faramir could remember being on his own two feet in a long while. He remembered distractedly being told that he was ill, but couldn’t recall exactly what was supposed to be wrong with him, and in his confused state was finding timescales very difficult to judge: it seemed like forever, and yet no time at all that he had been confined to his sick-bed. Crossing over to the casement he saw that the board fixed against the pane that Shagrat had broken on his way out had fallen away, and he hung his head through the open window, breathing deeply. Perhaps the unfortunate Prince’s system was adjusting to the regular doses that were still being administered to him, or maybe those poisons were losing their potency over time. Possibly the freezing air that was working its way in and out of his lungs might even have been helping him, but for whatever reason as he leaned there breathing the night air, some of the dizziness and disorientation that had swamped him for so long slowly began to subside. The heavy, stultifying mists that were typical for this part of Ithilien in the autumn had also lifted, and Faramir saw to his surprise that outside the trees in the moonlight were almost all bare of leaves, and there was a rare winter frost, white and glittering over the grass. He shook his head bemusedly; when Shagrat had left him it had only just been the end of summer, surely? How much time had passed since then really? There came to Faramir as he stood at the window then an overwhelming sense of connection with the Uruk - probably a remnant from his dream; a feeling that though they were separated for the moment, he and Shagrat were in some way still very close. “Shagrat?” he said into the darkness. The link he’d felt, or imagined between them had been so strong that he wouldn’t have been at all surprised to have heard a reply, but he waited, and none came. He just had the vaguest, fleeting impression of stars burning brightly, as they did only at altitude, and of the great distance that stood between him and his Orc. Then it was gone and there only was a smell of bare rock and scree-slopes, carried into Ithilien by the cold breeze gusting down from the mountains. ***************** “He’s somewhere high up, I’m sure of it,” Faramir insisted. “I’d wager anything he’s in the mountains – he been heading towards high ground before, always going south. I can’t believe this is the fist time I’ve thought of it.” Eowyn and her advisor Hrodgar exchanged significant looks behind the Prince’s back. Quite unexpectedly, Faramir had joined them at breakfast that morning, looking gaunt and thoroughly dishevelled but walking upright - much to Hrodgar’s consternation. His intention had been to put Eowyn’s husband out of action for much longer than this. Seeing him away from his sick-bed for the first time in weeks, Eowyn had been badly shaken by her spouse’s wasted appearance. Even so, equating Faramir’s rise from his sick bed with a recovery from the sordid brain-fever that had afflicted him, at first Eowyn had been delighted to receive him. But then he had ruined everything, by starting to harp on again about his runaway Orc. Would he never learn to leave that contentious subject well alone? “Will you not sit with us a moment?” Eowyn asked, nervously watching Faramir pace back and forth, up and down the length of the breakfast-table. He had been speaking over-agitatedly, and was none too steady on his feet. “Yes, do take a seat before you fall on your face,” was Hrodgar’s snide comment. “But you’re still willing to help me find Shagrat?” Faramir said anxiously to Eowyn, ignoring him. “You said you would, before.” Eowyn stared helplessly at her advisor, completely at a loss. Hrodgar inclined his head slightly. “A relapse,” he mouthed very obviously, out of Faramir’s line of sight. “Yes, I will, as we – agreed,” Eowyn said, hesitating only a very little. “But first, my husband, I must remind you that of late you – why, you have not been yourself. And now certainly, you are trying to do too much. It is too soon, Faramir! You have to remember to take your rest!” She took his arm, intending to guide him back to his sick-room. “I’ve had more than enough of that!” Faramir shook her off, saying that they had to make preparations to ride out at once. “I’ve dallied here for much too long already!” Faramir had been irredeemably contaminated by his associations with the Uruk and Eowyn loosed her hold of him immediately. The Prince left them then, saying he planned to make his preparations for departure, but he was better able to stagger than he was to walk away from the breakfast room. After he had gone Eowyn turned to Hrodgar. “And what is your counsel now?” she asked. The old man quickly considered the alternatives. Forcibly confining Faramir to his quarters would have been his preference, but somehow he couldn’t see Eowyn ever concurring to that. “Really, it makes little difference whether we are here or not,” he said eventually. “Let us all travel south, then. We can continue our true campaign there equally as well as here. And as regards your husband – well, perhaps the exercise will be beneficial to him.” If Hrodgar’s plans proceeded as he meant them to, then it assuredly would not. Chapter 13. Plan B Shagrat woke late the next morning. The Hobbit greeted him cheerily, apparently not at all offended by having been barked at the previous night and in a tentative gesture of reconciliation, the Uruk offered up his stash of deer-meat for the communal pot. As a result of this Ludlow had been cooking all morning. To Shagrat’s dry venison strips he had enthusiastically added a variety of strange vegetables (“wild onions! Delicious!”) and oddly-coloured, late season mushrooms (Look, Shagrat! Wood blewits!”) that he had rooted around for in the hanger-wood on the mountainside. Though he’d watched these dubious preparations with a leery eye, even Shagrat had to admit the end result was worth waiting for: the Hobbit certainly knew how to cook. After their meal the Uruk and Hobbit sat lazily, watching the glowing embers of Ludlow’s camp fire. “You know, if you need money, we could do what those other Orcs were planning,” Ludlow chirped up after a while, resuming one of the subjects from the previous night as if there hadn’t been a break in their conversation. “We could beat them to it.” Taking Shagrat’s lack of reply as a sign to continue, he began to explain what Dokuz’s band had been preparing to do. “Slaying giants, you say?” said Shagrat after a moment, thinking he had the jist of it. “Do me a favour. What kind of giant-killer do I look like to you? You must be off your rocker.” “No,” Ludlow insisted , Shagrat was missing the point. There was only one giant left to deal with, since giants had in general been dying out across Middle Earth for many years – “Just like all dark creatures are just now, or have been doing since the fall of Mordor,” Ludlow said earnestly, before remembering who he was talking to. “Oh! -” Shagrat raised his eyebrows at him. “Yes, well,” Ludlow blustered, continuing quickly to cover his faux pas. In any case, the giant in question was almost certainly already dead, given the length of time for which the reward for his removal had been standing. Dokuz and his band had met some crazy old coot in a pub who had told them all about it – “In a pub?” Shagrat interrupted. “That lot could drink in pubs, and nobody’d say anything?” “Well - yes, everyone always seemed quite happy about it,” the Hobbit said. “I met them in a pub myself, to begin with. Why do you ask?” “Every time I’ve been in a pub some have-a-go pillock hero tries to lynch me,” Shagrat replied darkly, before prompting Ludlow to continue, which he did: All that remained, the elderly gentleman had said, was for some fellow or fellows of stout heart with doughty natures, such as Dokuz and his Orcs obviously were, to tackle the ascent to the giant’s mountain retreat, and collect tangible proof of the monstrous creature’s demise. They would bring this back and then collect and share between them the reward that was still standing for his removal. “And you know where to find this old geezer do you?” asked Shagrat, still puzzling over Ludlow’s use of the word ‘doughty’. At this the Hobbit’s eyes welled up with unshed tears. “That poor man,” he said. “It was such an awful tragedy – him waiting all that while for someone to go into partnership with, then meeting with a fatal accident on the very night he found someone, someone he could trust.” Searching Ludlow’s plump and honest face, Shagrat looked for some indication that he understood the irony of what he’d just said, but finding none, simply commented: “I suppose you saw all this for yourself, did you?” “No. I think it happened just before I met them.” Shagrat said that it was a fine enough idea on Ludlow’s part, but went on to explain that their not knowing where to collect the bits of dead giant, or where to take the things once they had them would most likely count as insurmountably significant barriers to their success. “Oh, but there’s no need to worry about that,” Ludlow countered cheerfully. “Dokuz’s lads have already been. And the trophy -” He undid the drawstrings of Azof’s backpack with something of a flourish. The Uruk, accustomed as he was to the more gruesome sides of life, still recoiled slightly when he first caught sight of the horrible thing that was resting inside the haversack. It was a huge, disproportionately gigantic severed head, more than twice as large as Shagrat’s own, which meant that the creature from which it had been taken must have stood well in excess of fifteen feet high. It had black empty eye-sockets and the leather-like lips were pulled back from a double line of massive, slab-shaped yellow teeth. Dried and desiccated, obviously much shrunken from its original size, the wizened relic also bore an iron crown about its brow. “Azof and Rukush went to get it. They got back just before you found us the other night. That was the meeting place, at their camp. We’d been waiting ages for them, everybody was very excited. There was going to be a celebratory feast and everything. It’s such a pity we had to miss it!” Shagrat made no comment. For obvious reasons, Ludlow had been very fortunate not to have been included in that night’s festivities. “Afterwards, Dokuz was going to take that thing -” Ludlow indicated the head – “to the town down the valley. It’s the same one where I met them that first time.” Suddenly the Hobbit’s plan did not seem quite as unfeasible as it had done a moment before. But Shagrat still had his doubts: if the object in Azof’s pack really was as valuable as the Hobbit claimed it was, he couldn’t see Dokuz letting go of it so easily. The Uruk wondered why the others hadn’t come to reclaim it as yet. ************* Part of the reason for their delay was that after being chased a long way off-course by the pursuing Warg, it had taken Dokuz and his cronies some time to find their way back to the main body of their band. Given the filthy mood their leader had been in since they regrouped, Azof, very wisely, decided not to volunteer any information about the fate of the spoils he had been carrying until somebody asked him directly. Even later on, once Dokuz had found out about the loss of the trophy, he reacted to news of the cock-up with less than his usual vehemence, and seemed strangely willing to let the matter lie. “Why the blazes did you want to take the dratted thing along when we were chasing after them anyway?” Dokuz had said. “You already said yourself it weighed a frigging tonne.” “And leave it with this light-fingered lot, what’d nobble anything that weren’t nailed to the floor?” Azof retorted incredulously. “As if!” His leader made no further comment, and relieved to know that he was not being held personally accountable for anything that had happened, Azof decided that Dokuz could do with being needled a bit. He was bored, for one thing, eager for more violent action, and also it has to be said a little disgusted with his leader, having witnessed Dokuz’s recent headlong flight from the Warg. “What we going to do about it Dokuz, then, eh?” he said. “’Bout what?” snapped Dokuz. “About the fact that your ‘old mate’ Shaggers is sitting up there, Boss, with our booty what we’ve got first dibs on,” Azof replied. “He’s on his own! With that Halfling half-wit. What are we waiting for?” “I got my reasons,” Dokuz said. Azof challenged him to name them. “Well, he’s come back from the dead at least once already, hasn’t he?” said Dokuz. He lowered his voice, superstitiously fingering one of the amulets he wore around his neck as he spoke. “You know years ago, back in Mordor, they gave him to a Nazgul to play with - a proper Ringwraith mind, and you know what they’re liable to do to a body. Never wondered how a useless old tosser like Shagrat came to walk away from it? Well, not walked, exactly - not for the first few months after it was finished with ‘im, the way I heard it, but you know what I mean. Point is, he came through it alive though, did’n’ee? Now who else you ever heard of has done that? Can you think of anybody?” None of the Orcs replied, so in due course Dokuz answered his own question. “You can’t, cos there’s nobody. No-one. That ain’t right, and there were a lot said there was something well fishy about it back at the time. Gave ‘im a wide berth, on account of it. Then at the end of the war, back he goes to the Black Pits for the second time. But darn if he don’t turn up not long after right as rain, more or less. Like a proper bad penny. And, I was pretty sure I’d done for him last time we fought.” “What, you’re never saying he’s invincible, anythink like that?” “Nah,” said Dokuz, sounding not at all convinced, but he soon rallied. “Just supposing though - suppose that’s not really Shagrat, what’s come after us.” “You wot?” “Maybe it’s some kind of – of vengeful spirit that looks just like ‘im, instead,” Dokuz blurted out. “Everyone knows you get spirits, don’t ‘cher, the higher up you go in mountains? And that dog-thing what’s following it, that don’t look right either. That’s never natural, out of this earth or anywhere like it. I think we should just leave it.” “What I reckon it might be,” growled Azof, into the disbelieving silence that had fallen over the Orc band following Dokuz’s announcement of his surprising theory, “is that you ’av somehow gone and found yourself a guilty conscience late in life. You must ‘ave, ‘cos if it ain’t that, the only other explanation is you’ve come over all lilly-livered and you’re bottling it.” Dokuz screamed at him and dared him to say that again. The loyal Rukush leapt to his feet, intent on supporting his leader’s interests while a number of the smaller Orcs immediately sided with Azof. The round of in-fighting and factionalisation into sub- groups that this confrontation sparked off was more than enough to distract them all from Shagrat for the time being. ******* Over the next few days the Uruk and Hobbit made their way down from the mountainside, travelling slowly and without any major incidents. They arrived at the edge of the little township Ludlow had spoken about on an overcast afternoon, and spent some time lingering on the outskirts there. Nobody had accosted them, but Shagrat was still in two minds about carrying his companion’s hare-brained scheme through and he hesitated, thinking about the experiences he’d had in out-of-the-way places like this in the past. After a certain amount of hanging about indecisively however, Ludlow commented mildly enough that - “Dokuz and that lot were never bothered about it,” which for some reason seemed to decide things from Shagrat’s point of view. After that the Orc strode purposefully along, straight to the town hall chambers, and let himself in with scarcely a backward glance. Ludlow and the Warg scurried after in his wake, the Hobbit noting that for some reason, the lanky, stoop-shouldered Uruk was attracting a lot of curious stares and interest in general. The citizens of the border town they were visiting were accustomed to exotic-looking types though, and Shagrat’s party were able to pass without any real trouble. On entering the municipal building they were faced with a bank of chest-high, wooden desks, topped with a long iron-work grille, each with a pale-faced clerk sitting behind. “Here about the giant,” Shagrat said shortly, to the nearest of these fellows. Their clerk was a rumple-haired youth, still not old enough to be sporting a proper beard. The dozy adolescent had broken off from scratching his pimply chin just for long enough to look up disinterestedly as they approached his booth. He did a definite double-take on catching sight of Shagrat however and craned his head over the desk he was sitting at, the better to stare at the unlikely band of giant-killers who were standing in front of him. His gaze drifted from the fearsome Orc down to the limping, pot-bellied wolf-beast that accompanied it, and rested for a moment on the shortest member of the company. It was an odd-looking creature, of a species not immediately familiar to the Clerk, although he knew he had heard of something like it before. The short one beamed back at him. “A one-eyed Orc and a three-legged Warg?” the Clerk said, incredulously. “Is that it? Halfling doesn’t look like he’s all there either. Haven’t any of you people got the full set of parts you was born with?” “These two aren’t with me, not really,” said Shagrat. “They keep following me about, that’s all. Can’t seem to shake the bleeders.” Quickly changing the subject, he said they believed there was a reward on offer for the relief of a giant-related problem in these parts? “Well, yeah,” the Clerk said hesitantly, confirming that there was a reward still standing, technically at any rate. He went on to say that nobody had ever been able to claim it, “’cos you know where them giants live, do yer? It’s just the other side of the Mountains of Shadow. Near as in Mordor as makes no difference.” “Oh no! That would put anybody off!” squeaked Ludlow agitatedly. “You’re right there. You’re dead right. Black Army’s gone but there’s still packs of wild Wargs and the odd Uruk soldier roamin’ and who knows what else besides.” At that the Clerk broke off, beginning to think properly for the first time about the species composition of the group that was standing there, large as life, in front of him. “Anyway,” he continued uncertainly, “we’ve been told to tell anyone that asks that -” the youth continued, pausing to consult a note that had been written in block-captials and pinned to the wall of his stall, “’under no circumstances will any claim be considered unless it is substantiated by e-v-i-d-e-n-t-i-a-r-y c-o-r-r-o-b-o-r-a-t-i-o-n.’” “Fair enough,” Shagrat said, opening Azof’s bag and hefting it up onto the counter between them. Perusing the browned and leathery relict the Clerk commented: “you’ve never killed him though. Looks like he’s been dead a long time.” “That,” replied Shagrat, “is neither here nor there,” and added that he thought they’d take the reward sharpish and be on their way. The Clerk, faced with a novel situation that he neither the necessary experience, interest in or indeed inclination to handle himself did what young people employed in junior administrative positions generally do at times like this. “I’ll get my supervisor,” he said, and went to ask for him. After a short wait a self-important-looking older man arrived. Like his employee, the Supervisor spent some time appraising the Orc and the Hobbit. The Warg-hybrid he ignored, but the unique combination of species and personal attributes that other two of them represented were posing him with some unexpected conceptual problems, none of which would have applied if he had been facing either one of them alone. Shagrat, as an Orcish undesirable, would immediately have been shown the door while the Hobbit, similarly, would have been laughed right through it. Together though, together they had – not an air of respectability or gravitas, that wasn’t it. Not even close; but they did at least make for a baffling combination. The Supervisor was trying and failing miserably to work out which one (if either) of them could possibly be the brains of the partnership. “I’m acting as his legal representative in this matter,” Ludlow said suddenly, showing a flash of perspicacity that if Shagrat had had the faintest idea what he was talking about, would have confirmed that the Hobbit perhaps at times understood slightly more of what was going on around him than he was in the habit of letting on. “We’re here on official business. I’ve been keeping a detailed record of our activities – been saving all the receipts and everything.” On hearing this the Supervisor looked definitely disgruntled, probably because he had been hoping to fob the pair of them off. “That’s what I do back home,” the Hobbit added, in response to a curious look from Shagrat. “It’s the family business.” “Is it? Really?” “In a way. Well – no,” Ludlow admitted sotto voce. “I am grand-nephew to a Justice of the Peace though. On my Mother’s side.” What Ludlow said didn’t mean much to Shagrat since he had no idea what a Justice of the Peace was, and as to the rest of it, he’d never had much truck with familial relationships. He didn’t, for example, even know who his own parents were, and had never knowingly met either of them. After that the Clerk and his Supervisor were gone for almost an hour. As they waited, Ludlow tried to catch the Uruk’s eye but Shagrat seemed intent on studying the intricate iron-wrought scroll-work that topped the counter as a security grille. At last the two men returned, and the older of them handed Ludlow a bundle of paperwork. There was quite a number of people following them. “What’s this?” Ludlow exclaimed in dismay, riffling through the sheaf of parchment. “Land deeds? This can’t be it.” “Standard giant-killing contract, I think you’ll find,” the clerk’s superior replied. “Payment may be made in lieu at the payer’s discretion, and will stand at half the kingdom or equivalent land area - which in the case of this district roughly equates to the five valleys on the other side of the Bald Mountain. It’s the same area from which you originally obtained the – ah – evidentiary relict.” After this there was a long and disappointed sort of silence. “If your legal representative would be so kind as to make his mark here –“ the Supervisor said smoothly, indicating the place on a particularly thick piece of parchment, one that was already heavy with official-looking wax seals – “and here, we’ll begin effecting the transfer of deeds to you directly. Congratulations!” Some of the Supervisor’s colleagues and seniors had apparently come to witness the hand-over, and were complaining loudly about the folly of handing over vast areas of mountainside and water rights - not to mention valuable timber resources - to random vagrants willy-nilly. Against this background of mutinous grumblings Ludlow, having little other option duly signed on the dotted lines. He was all but oblivious to the mens’ complaints. The little creature was much more worried about Shagrat, who he could tell without even looking was glaring and glowering at him, probably with murderous intent. Chapter 14: Monarch of All He Surveys “I didn’t think it looked that bad, not really,” Ludlow said tentatively, peering into the evening gloom. The fog that had drifted up from the valley bottom at sunset had obscured most of the vista that lay before them from view. This was probably just as well. Where there was woodland, the stunted, twist-limbed trees crowded together far too thickly, and elsewhere the landscape seemed to be made up of nothing more than rocky outcrops, interspersed by rolling, brownish stretches of featureless upland plain. A thin night wind had risen now and was snickering restlessly through the bare branches of the thorn bushes that bordered the narrow mountain path. The whole place was beyond desolate, Ludlow thought. He shifted his hairy, un-shod feet doubtfully, dislodging a cascade of rocks and pebbles that went rattling their way down into the gulley on the other side of the path. After a moment a series of clattering echoes sounded from the depths of the ravine. They sounded a bit like someone shouting and laughing in an evil, unknown language. Thoroughly spooked, the Hobbit turned on his heels and scuttled back to the yellowish circle of lamplight cast by the lantern on his and Shagrat’s donkey-cart. It didn’t look much proof against the darkness and he shivered, clutching tightly on the lucky rabbit foot he carried in his jacket pocket. The Uruk was still standing by the side of the wagon, staring into space. His remaining eye was glowing with a feral light and he seemed to be shivering with barely-suppressed excitement. “Not that bad?” he answered, and there was a strange note of exultation in his voice as he spoke. “North facing, did you notice? I think it’s bloody perfect!” “You like it then?” the Hobbit replied incredulously. “Don’t you?” his companion sounded surprised. “I don’t think it’s exactly – my kind of place,” Ludlow explained carefully. Quite frankly the wild and barren topography of Shagrat’s own private expanse of blasted heath gave him the willies. He much preferred greener, more pleasant varieties of countryside. “Oh, well,” Shagrat commented, “if was any use to anyone, they’d never have let you and me get our hands on it, would they?” “They might have,” the Hobbit said bitterly. “Because of that and the land tax.” Following Ludlow’s signing of the deeds of transfer back at the town, there had been a sort of a hastily cobbled-together social soiree, during which about a half dozen different local dignitaries had all taken great delight in informing the Hobbit that as co-opted owner of a huge (and hugely useless) tract of mostly inaccessible mountainside, he now owed the Crown of Gondor a not inconsiderable sum of money, all payable as back-taxes. “Because they’ve had to raise revenues these last few years, to pay for the War,” one of the men had hiccoughed at him, quite late, as the evening wore on. “And – this’ll make you laugh. They’ve decided it’s all to be payable by unit acreage! Rates’re sky high. Really, you couldn’t have taken possession at a worse time!” Ludlow knew for a fact that Shagrat, though he’d heard all of it had been deliberately pretending neither to notice, or understand why everyone was laughing at them. He hadn’t attended much of the social gathering. Having taken his Warg and a bottle of some kind of over-proof local spirit he had decamped outside, to carry on a ‘personal celebration,’ as he called it, in the municipal gardens - “Drinking yourself silly, more like,” Ludlow sniffed, on finding him out there afterwards. “You’re three sheets to the wind, Shagrat. Again. Have you even had anything solid to eat as yet?” The next morning they hired a farm cart and a donkey to pull it – both rather rickety but all they could afford, and armed with a map of the county provided by the councilmen, set off to have a look at their new landholding. There was a track-way of sorts that they had been following, not much more than a game-trail really, and unsuitable for wheeled traffic but justabout passable by their tiny vehicle. The swathe of hillside that had passed into Shagrat’s ownership began at the peak of the mountain ridge that separated it from the more fertile, Gondorian uplands on the southern side. They arrived there in the evening of the third day, a short while before sunset. “Have you thought about how we’re going to pay what we owe, incidentally?” asked Ludlow as they began their preparations for the night ahead. The thought of being financially indebted to anyone was worrying him sick. “Oh, I expect something’ll turn up,” Shagrat said. His new-found optimism was beginning to be quite unsettling In the morning Ludlow had to revise his first impression of the Uruk’s mountain realm. It wasn’t entirely comprised of open, rocky wasteland after all, because the hillsides were also intersected by a large number of near vertical, wooded ravines. There had been a succession of thunderstorms for most of the night and to get out of the howling gale that was now blowing on the mountaintop, the Uruk and Hobbit decided to explore the nearest of these. They picked their way carefully down over the massive rock-slabs and tumbled boulders that filled the upper reaches of the gorge, eventually coming to a wider, flatter area, a plateau or rock-shelf high in the mountainside. The valley opened out noticeably here, so that a few rays of wintry sunlight were able to beam down through the trees to the valley floor. Though the rain had stopped during the night it was still overcast and the pale-yellow sunshine was very weak, but somehow the whole of the little mountain grotto seemed to be shimmering with a bright-white dancing light. The sunlight was definitely reflecting off something. More accurately, it was reflecting off a great deal of something. “Shagrat, what’s all this silvery stuff?” asked Ludlow after a moment. The Uruk searched briefly, then spotting what he was looking for bent down and picked up one of the ingots from a pool of water at his feet. It was about the size of the first joint of his thumb and was as light as a piece of pumice-stone. The pretty little fragment of metal had a familiar sort of shiny, sparkling quality to it that Shagrat was sure he’d seen somewhere before. “It’s surprisingly light-weight, isn’t it?” Ludlow said. “Remarkably so. D’you think it could possibly be -“ “Nah,” said Shagrat quickly, “no chance. If that was what this is, these valleys would be wall-to-wall Dwarves, wouldn’t they? Never mind what else was living here. Mad for that stuff, those half-pint hairy little buggers.” “I don’t know though Shagrat. There were Giants here till quite recently, weren’t there? And afterwards I don’t think anyone came here much. Everyone said this place had an ill reputation.” “Can’t think why,” Shagrat said bemusedly, and he really didn’t seem to be joking. Ludlow fought briefly against a superstitious urge to look back over his shoulder, to check that there was nothing unnatural spying on him in this fell and lonely place. Then he gave in to it. His gaze took in the craggy, moss-covered walls of the ravine on either side and then far, far above them, through the branches of the gnarly trees that crowded the sides of the gulley – (“The haunted, frightened, trees,” Ludlow thought to himself, suppressing a shudder) - he could see a patch of grey-black, definitely lowering sky. And there was indeed something unnatural watching them. It was Shagrat’s Warg, which was perched on a boulder higher up the valley and was staring intently at the back of his head. It barked at him, then stood up and sat down again a few times agitatedly, until at last Ludlow chucked a large piece of mithril at it to make it stop. With a reproachful look, the Warg turned and skulked off, zig-zagging its way up the steep slope out of the valley. “And,” the Orc was saying, as if he was still trying to convince himself that they had not just stumbled upon a vast resource of mineral wealth, “you can’t just go picking that stuff off the ground. You have to go mining, deep in the earth, don’t you? That’s why Dwarves are always stirring up ancient evils, by digging too far down for it. Stands to reason, doesn’t it?” “’Ancient evils?’” Ludlow echoed faintly. “Yes. You know - things that’ve buried themselves deep at the roots of the mountains, hiding there from the….light of the stars,” Shagrat replied hesitantly. An odd faraway look passed over his face and then he pulled himself together. “Ancient evils and all sorts.” “I don’t know about that,” the Hobbit admitted, “but this is such a deep gorge. That means there must be a lot of water in it, sometimes. Maybe all that - stuff’s – getting washed down here from further up?” Mordor, in the time Shagrat had lived there was effectively a desert realm, but even he had not failed to notice that the little stream that flowed down the bottom of the gulley was already bigger than it had been when they arrived. “When would there be a lot of water coming down here do you reckon?” he asked, as the first few fat raindrops of the morning’s deluge began to fall. “I suppose, about – this time of year, actually,” Ludlow said slowly, “especially after it’s been raining for - a - long - time – higher – up –“ The Hobbit and Uruk looked at each other for a moment, listening to an odd hissing, roaring and splashing noise that was rushing down the valley towards them, getting louder and louder all the while. Left to his own devices Ludlow would tried and failed to outrun the flash-flood that was descending on them, but fortunately Shagrat kept his wits about him. He grabbed the fleeing Hobbit by the back of his coat and swung him up, boosting him high onto one of the side-walls of the gorge, out of reach of the approaching wall of water. The Hobbit hung on among the tree-roots for dear life as Shagrat clambered up after. He swore eloquently, shaking himself off and spitting out fragments of leaf-mould that Ludlow had kicked down on him. “Can you swim?” Ludlow squeaked hysterically, through chattering teeth. “Don’t think so. Can you climb?” The Hobbit shook his head, giving him a look of mute appeal. Shagrat rolled his eye exasperatedly. “Think you can you keep out of my way and hang on while I climb us out of here then?” The Orc was not particularly limber or agile but largely through brute force he was able to pull them up from rock to tree-root to craggy ledge, to scale the walls of the ravine. The point they climbed out at was some distance downhill from the pass where they’d left their wagon and as they struggled to regain the height they’d lost, the rain turned to icy sleet. When eventually they got back to the point they’d started at the sun was already well past its highest point and Ludlow in particular had become severely chilled. Shagrat regarded the bedraggled Hobbit for a moment. The rain and wet didn’t especially bother him, but the little creature was soaked through and looked like he was in a bad way. “Come on,” he said after a moment, raising up his cape. “You can get under here if you want.” Ludlow hesitated, and the corners of the Orc’s mouth turned down. “I’m not going to do anything to you, if that’s what you’re worried about,” he said shortly. Actually, being manhandled by Shagrat was the last thing that Ludlow had on his mind. It had not escaped the observant Hobbit’s attention that his travelling companion avoided physical contact wherever possible - was almost pathologically averse to it, in fact. He hadn’t for example coped particularly well when Ludlow was clinging to his back during their ascent from the ravine, and had shivered him off with obvious relief the moment they were safe on relatively level ground. Ludlow was so cold and miserable by now though that he almost didn’t care, and since an invitation had been issued, he surged the short distance across the wagon bench and snuggled gratefully against Shagrat’s side. Brusquely, the Uruk pulled his cloak around to cover him, stiffening and gritting his teeth as he felt the Hobbit press in close beside him. Ludlow’s trembling slowly abated as he warmed himself on the hot-blooded Uruk and by tiny increments, Shagrat eventually succeeded in forcing himself at least to partly relax. He still didn’t much care for the enforced proximity, but supposed it wasn’t as bad as all that. The going was much easier as they were travelling downhill. As they came down from the mountain, the sleet gave way to rain, the rain to drizzle, and then the drizzle to heavy mountain mist. At some point they must have missed their way or chosen the wrong fork in the road, because they arrived at a mountain settlement just before dark. Even with their faster travelling pace, they got there far too quickly for it to be the town they originally started at. It had just started raining again and as all their possessions were soaking wet, the Hobbit thought that they should try to find lodgings there anyway. There was, as luck, or otherwise, would have it, a tavern in view just on the road they were travelling on. “I’m not sure,” Shagrat said warily, as Ludlow stopped their donkey-cart outside the premises. “We don’t know the lie of the land hereabouts. Must be a fair bit away from the border, up here, mustn’t we?” “Go on,” Ludlow insisted. “We could at least go for a drink, to get out of the cold for a while. It’s got to be better than getting rained on, doesn’t it?” So they went in. They were among the first customers of the evening and even though the bar-room was almost empty, it was warm and stuffy in the tavern already. To Shagrat’s relief the woman serving behind the bar greeted them hospitably enough. “Master Hobbit, Mister Orc,” she said. “What’ll it be?” Ludlow mugged an ‘I told you so’ expression at Shagrat. Still unconvinced, he ordered a beer for the Hobbit, then named his poison, in Orcish. The Barmaid, quite unperturbed, turned and poured a measure of what Shagrat had asked for out from a dusty earthenware pot, making it a double. The Uruk stared at her. “You stock that?” “Well, we don’t find we have Orcish gentlemen in so very often these days,” the Patroness explained, “but when we do, they always seem to drink an awful lot of it. So it’s worth our while keeping a few gallons in store.” That sounded about right. Taking their drinks, Shagrat and Ludlow retired to a table in an inglenook near the fireplace. The stonework round the chimney-breast was warm from the fire and the coals in the grate cast a ruddy, comforting glow. It did, the Orc had to admit, as he settled himself back in his seat, beat being rained on. Their peaceful evening was destined not to last long however and the trouble started when Ludlow went to purchase the next round of drinks. The Patroness had left the bar for a moment, and as the Hobbit perched on a bar-stool waiting for her to return, a crowd of men from the village arrived. They stood blocking the doorway as they removed and hung up their wet rain-coats, talking and shouting excitedly among themselves. There was a definite undercurrent of aggression and menace about the group. An older, moustachioed man stepped over to join the Hobbit and greeted him quite amicably, introducing himself as the local Constable. “Please could you tell me what all this shouting’s about, Sir?” Ludlow piped up at him. “Royal Edict, little Master,” the Constable explained. “Nothing that should worry you! Notice’s gone out to every parish in the country. There’s a bounty, a king’s ransom offered, for – well see for yourself.” He handed Ludlow one of the pamphlets. “They’re hunting down the last of the Orcs, aren’t they!” a second man said excitedly, picking up the same topic as the Constable. “Looks like someone’s finally had the back-bone to take a stand. Long live Prince Faramir, I say! He’s the one behind it.” Ludlow turned the paper over and over in his hands. Out of the corner of his eye he could see Shagrat shuffling his chair further back into the shadow of the chimney- breast. He had his hand up to his face and was looking extremely shifty. “It’s only a shame we didn’t get word of this before!” the man continued. “And why’s that?” the Hobbit asked. “Haven’t had time to round up a proper bunch of Orcs for them have we? We easily could’ve! That vermin’s taken to coming in here sometimes, bold as brass – and he – “ he glared at the Constable, “says there ain’t a thing he’s been able to do about it!” “Not so long as they pay for their drinks and aren’t seen to break any laws,” the Constable insisted, red in the face. “I’ve told you time and again.” “But now at least we won’t have far to take them when we catch some!” the man cried, thumping the bar for emphasis. “Royal Party’s travelling down through the province at the moment, and word is that presently they’re over at – “ he named a locality which was apparently was not too far away. “What’s that you’re drinking there, eh?” the Constable said, peering suspiciously at Shagrat’s cup, which was waiting on the counter to be refilled. “What was someone saying about Orcs?” the Patroness asked loudly, as she bustled up to the bar again. She waved her hand in Shagrat’s general direction. “Because the little gentleman was just speaking to an Orc there –“ There was a moment of dead silence during which every head in the house turned to look at Shagrat. More people had squeezed into the bar-room and there was now no chance that he would be able to make it to the door. Since his time with the travelling showmen, Shagrat had always feared that he’d meet his end being ripped apart by a mob of angry villagers; he still regularly had nightmares about it, in fact. Now that the worst had happened there was in an odd sort of sense, an undeniable feeling of relief. Shoving his chair back, Shagrat drew himself up from his usual stooping hunch, standing tall at his impressive height, and felt for his sword-stick, which wasn’t there. “Come on then,” he snarled at the bar-room at large. “Come and have a go, if you think you’re hard enough –“ And then he was down on the floor, pinned in place by half a dozen eager men. “Alive? Or dead?” asked the fellow who’d been speaking to Ludlow at the bar, eagerly. One of the men holding Shagrat down seized a handful of the Orc’s greyish hair and pulled his head back, exposing his throat. Asking if anyone had a decent pig-sticking blade on them, he said: “usual form for these things isn’t it? Better safe than sorry, eh?” Snarling maniacally, the Uruk tried to bite him. But the Hobbit was doggedly pushing his way through the crowd. “I really think,” Ludlow chirped insistently, waving the Royal Edict and tugging at the Constable’s sleeve, “that you should read this through properly, before you do anything else. I mean. Look what it says here – and on the back. There’s a codicil. It’s very strongly-worded.” The Constable hesitated for a moment and then withdrew a pair of reading glasses from his pocket. “Well I must say we’re all very indebted to you Master Hobbit,” he said at length. “You’ve saved us from a lot of trouble. That could have had very expensive consequences.” “They’re wanting them alive, brought in alive, at any rate,” he told his companions loudly. “There’s a codicil. It’s very strongly-worded.” The man holding Shagrat’s head back let go of it abruptly and it hit the floor with a resounding bump. “Oh, we’ll leave him alive,” said the man from the bar. “He’ll definitely be alive at the end of it – more or less.” What happened to the Uruk next shocked Ludlow more than a little, although it was nothing particularly new to Shagrat. Human curiosity about Orcs tended to express itself in very limited, predictable ways and by the time that his current would-be lynch-mob had ticked off all the usual points on its metaphorical checklist the Uruk was reacting to the townspeople who surrounded him like little more than a beast. This was in some way understandable because he certainly was being treated like one. His responses to adversity became more and more animal-like the further that Shagrat was provoked, and by the end of it Ludlow would have been hard-pressed even to recognise the jaded and world-weary Uruk he thought he’d come to know over the past weeks. The Hobbit was more than a little daunted by the prospect of facing the raging, spitting creature into which his travelling companion had been transformed, but Ludlow was at his most basic a stout-hearted and loyal little fellow and to his credit, his resolution to rescue Shagrat did not waver for an instant. It was late at night when they were finished with him. Peeking into the outbuilding in which Shagrat had been imprisoned, the Hobbit was glad to see that he seemed to have calmed down – or had slumped into a slew of morose feelings and dejection, it was difficult to tell which. The door to the building he was being kept in had been bolted and barred from the outside, but was otherwise unsecured, the townsmen relying on the guard they had placed on it rather than locks to contain their Uruk captive. The guard had volunteered for the duty – it was the same fellow from the bar who’d been ringleader during the evening’s earlier entertainments – but he was now well and truly passed out, because Ludlow had been plying him with strong drink for the past several hours. Moving as quietly as only a Hobbit could, Ludlow let himself in. Shagrat had obviously not been expecting him to come and although he tried to hide his surprise he was bad at it. It was clear to Ludlow that even then, the Uruk was far from being sure of him. “Still not seen enough as yet?” he snarled. “Come to gawk some more?” He lunged at Ludlow as if to attack but it was an empty gesture and they both knew it, because Shagrat had been tied fast by his captors, hand and foot. To forestall any further negative comments the Hobbit bent down and began trying to free him. He swallowed when he saw how the deeply the cords binding him had bitten into the Uruk’s wrists and ankles. He had obviously been struggling violently against his bonds for quite some time. “Just cut it through,” Shagrat told him harshly, dismissing Ludlow’s careful attempts to avoid injuring him any further. “Cut it through quickly and let me up.” By this time the Hobbit was nearly in tears of sympathy himself. “I, er, brought your clothes and things,” Ludlow said as he worked at the knots. “I think it was disgraceful, the way they wanted to look at your -“ “That’s the first thing they always do, especially when they’ve got a few drinks in them,” Shagrat said quickly, cutting him off. “Whole world and his wife want to see for themselves if it’s true what everyone says about Orcs. You get used to it.” “What, how everyone says that you can’t experience the smallest shred of pleasure or enjoyment save for in witnessing the torments you inflict on your victims?” Ludlow asked bemusedly. “But I don’t see what that has to do with them taking down your britches and –“ As he dressed, Shagrat tersely explained that he had been referring to the other thing that everybody knew about Orcs. This seemed to embarrass Ludlow unduly, perhaps because he hadn’t been able to avoid seeing that the physical characteristic everybody attributed to Orcs was certainly possessed by Shagrat - and then some. Most uncharacteristically he stopped speaking at once. This suited Shagrat, who was in no mood for talking, and in silence they made their way out of the building, then hurried through the deserted streets to the edge of the town. The Hobbit and Uruk stood together in the dark for an uncomfortable moment. Folding down stiffly onto one knee Shagrat brought himself to the Hobbit’s level, so that they were more or less eye-to-eye. The Orc looked as if he might be considering clapping him on the shoulder in a comradely manner, but if he was he quickly thought better of it. He seemed to be searching for the right words for something he hadn’t much experience in knowing how to say. “You know I – I won’t be forgetting this,” was what he eventually came up with. “Where did they say his High and Royal Wonderfulness Prince Faramir was making his camp?” Shagrat asked the Hobbit after another awkward silence. Ludlow named the place. “And where was that?” Shagrat wanted to know. Ludlow pointed him in what he thought was the right general direction. “But Shagrat, wait,” he continued. “You’ve –“ “No,” Shagrat interrupted, this unfinished business couldn’t wait. He turned and loped away into the dark. “You don’t understand!” Ludlow protested, running a little way along after. But the Uruk had already been swallowed up by the vastness of the night, and the lone Hobbit had no way of following him. TBC.