Book I

How He Left Mordor

Chapter One

The Life of an Orc in General

In a hole in the ground there lived an orc. Not a nice, clean, dry hole, filled with cupboards of food and a bacon-y smell, nor yet a comfortable, crowded, warm hole with everything in it you could ever dream of sitting on or eating. It was an orc-hole, and that means the-best-he-could-get-which-still-wasn't-much.

It wasn't hardly anything, really; but orcs by nature don't tend to expect much. I mean, being an orc is being an orc, if you know what I'm trying to get at, and for Pegrun, for that was our orc's name, the hole he had wasn't all that terrible. It was really a cave in the side of a mountain, in the dark and dismal domain of Mordor, just in the shadow of Mount Doom. It was wet, let's say that, for the shower wasn't properly drained, but that was by far the worst thing about it. Anyway, he had a dry bed with a blanket and a hook to hang his armour on and a view from the front door, so what more could he ask for?

It was only one cave of many in that part of the mountain. On the threshold of his hole lay the smoking camp of Dwardof, one of the Dark Lord's many labour camps, where they were busy making siege equipment at double-speed. The orcs who worked there lived in the caves, and since there were many orcs each cave was rather crowded. Pegrun shared his with four others, and being the smallest of all of them had the least space to himself. But in a way he didn't mind this, for when the great, hulking overseer came by to inspect, it was always Kyrnakh or Dron who got kicked.

He was wrinkling his nose in the doorway one particular morning and wondering about the weather and if there would be enough dinner to go around that day and if his quota had doubled again like it seemed to every morning, and why on earth Defmog had to sing so very loudly when he was in the shower, when Dron, who had been up extra early to see the overseer, clambered up to the cave and snarled a pleasant 'good morning.'

'Defmog still in?' he demanded. 'He's using up the hot water ration again! Now listen up, the lot of you. Quota increase today, the chief says.'

Gwigolla jumped out of her barrel, tossing away the sheets and grumbled for effect. (Gwigolla was fond of barrels.) Neither Kyrnakh nor Pegrun bothered to gripe because they had both expected this, but Gwigolla was that sort of person – that is, orc.

'Shut up,' said Dron, sympathetically. 'One other thing and listen sharp because I an't going to repeat it. They're moving a lot of us out of here soon, and anyone who isn't caught up with his quota won't be taken. So catch up. Peg, that means you.'

'Battle?' asked Gwigolla, listening quite sharply. 'Battle, eh? Eh?'

'Like as not,' said Dron. 'All he said is a lot of us are moving. Def, come out of there, you lout, or I'll stick you like a pig.'

'Who wants battle?' asked Kyrnakh. 'It's all marching at quick time and who knows how far? Rohan, perhaps, or worse.'

'You have no guts,' said Gwigolla. 'Without obstacles, I could make Rohan in two days, allowing stops for meals.'

'Well, that's nothing,' said Kyrnakh. 'I could do it in one and a half. But that's just the thing. There will be obstacles. First of all, aren't you forgetting the Mountains? And after that there will be armies.'

'Which means battle!' cried Gwigolla. 'Battle, which means action, and food. Meat, too, not watery porridge.'

She had just found breakfast on the table and gazed at it with distaste. But she ate it anyway. She ate Peg's ration, too.

'Meat, meat, meat,' she blubbered to herself, until Kyrnakh hit her over the head and suppressed her.

Defmog slunk into the main part of the cave buckling his belt and still singing.

'Aaah, ya ya yaah! Ya ya yaah, yaah, ya-yah!'1

He had learned that very recently and was still trying to cement the words in his mind. He had a very fine baritone, though he couldn't carry a tune in a wheelbarrow, let alone a bucket.

'The call will sound in a couple of minutes,' said Dron, cuffing him because he was at hand. 'So don't waste time. And Peg!' He slapped his forehead. 'I nearly forgot. The overseer wants to see you.'

Peg looked up in shock.

'Me?' he demanded. 'What for?'

'Don't ask me,' said Dron. 'I assume he wants you to run something. Get a move on.'

Peg already had both legs over the cliff-face. Their cave was some ten metres above the camp on a sheer rock-face. It was an easy climb down when you had done it every day for the past three months, as Peg had. And one couldn't always expect to get ground-level lodging. Not when one was as small as Pegrun son of Nobody-Knew-Who.

He clamped his helmet on his head, scrambled over the edge, and skittered down the rough black rock. Below him stretched the parched brown land of Mordor, above him towered the dark Ash Mountains. The sky was black, as always. To the south towered Barad-Dûr, menacing and eternal in its dark watchfulness. Peg ignored it. The Eye was always watching, but the Eye didn't care about a small orc like him, and he didn't care about It very much, either.

He tumbled the last twelve feet to the ground and stood up, dusting himself off and looking around for the overseer.

The overseer was a brute. Half-man and half-orc, they said he was, and the worst of both worlds. Far too tall for any respectable orc, Pulrat was strong, violent, and utterly rude. Peg disliked him. But he was in charge.

He was coming up the road that very moment, knocking about the few, very unwise orcs who got in his way while he was on inspection. Peg wrinkled his nose, twisted his helmet more firmly over his ears, and stood his ground.

Pulrat drew near and for a moment didn't recognise the small orc at his feet. He lifted an idle hand to swipe him out of the way, but then paused.

'Pegrun?' he snarled.

Pegrun snorted affirmatively.

'You're to run something to the Tower.'

He shuffled in his various pockets and finally pulled out a rolled parchment.

'A messenger brought it,' he said. 'But Shelob got him on the way back and he's lying down there in a certain state of immobility. So you take it to Barad-Dûr and leg it quick, do you hear?'

And to make sure that Peg had heard, he gave him a thump on the side of the helmet that tumbled the small orc over three times.

'Get a move on, snaga,' he said, and Peg obediently loped southwards to the Dark Tower.

In fifteen minutes he had left the camp of Dwardof behind him, though when he looked briefly over his shoulder he could see the smoke still rising up in pillars towards the black clouds overheard.

There was no question in his mind over why he had been sent. He was the best runner in Dwardof – small but terribly fast and very straight-forward. Send him, and he would get there. He chuckled to himself as he clutched the roll of paper against his chest and trotted. Gwigolla talked of two days to Rohan! Kyrnakh thought he could do it in one and a half! Peg calculated the distance in his head and did some complicated arithmetic. He could do it in seven hours, eighteen minutes and twenty-one seconds, starting from his cave and ending up on the very border. He wondered if Gwigolla and Kyrnakh really even knew where Rohan was.

Peg knew, because Peg hadn't been sitting about all his life making siege towers. He was a runner almost from birth, and that was what he did best. They had used him as a guide, as a scout, and it was only recently that they had decided these confounded Uruk-hai were better than he was and set him down to make things. Make things? He was far better at breaking and taking them.

He had been over much of Middle-Earth, he had even been past the Misty Mountains, and he knew someday he would see more of it. Someday when he had retired and had a comfortable pension, he would head northeast towards Rhûn and then wind his way towards Erebor and then over to Rivendell, of which he had heard so much, and do a full circle round that far-away place they called the Shire. Then he'd come home by way of Gondor and see what was going on there, and do the whole thing over a couple more times.

He would see other races. He would find out what men were up to and learn a little more about elves, and he'd find out if these hobbit creatures really existed or if they were just dwarves who couldn't grow beards.

And more than that, he'd do Things. He'd find a magic sword or two, maybe come across a dragon and chase it away from a harassed town, and the people would be forever grateful. He'd find a giant treasure and cart it off in buckets. He'd save a country or two from some great peril and then finally, when he was ready, he would settle down and find a nice hole to live alone in. Alone.

He hurtled over a rock and hummed to himself the song Defmog had gotten stuck in his head.

'Ye ye ye ye ye, ye ye ye, ye ye ye, oh ho ho ho ho!'

He drew closer to the Dark Tower, going at a steady pace.

1 Defmog was presumably making an attempt at Trololo, a popular song in Middle-Earth at the time. The song became No. 1 in both Black and Common Speech and went platinum when Saruman the White released his cover of it on the album by the same title. Though no official copies remain, the album was said to have also included the hit One to Rule Them All and an original rap single Taking the Hobbits to Isengard, the latter of which became almost as popular as Trololo when later covered by the elf Legolas.