From inside the cave, the ranger watched the moorlands warily, awaiting the danger he knew was to come. The tall grass waved as a sea of green in the heavy winds and rain. He had positioned himself perfectly on a high perch so that he could spot any turmoil on the surrounding countryside. The cave was a ranger secret, passed down by the Numenoreans from the settlement of Middle Earth. It was almost impossible to get to, and even more impossible to see.

No orc arrows will be coming this way. He thought with a smirk. And even if they notice where the arrows are coming from, they'll be dead before they can tell anyone.

Once again he oiled his bow and twanged the taut string. There were fires in the distance. He threw on his weather stained hood, and tried to ignore the wet squelching in his shoes where he didn't water proof them correctly. The orcs stormed over a rise, hopping off of jutting rocks like mice, spiders, roaches - vermin.

Never tired, and never fully crushed. There were always more to take their place. Only when all the orcs on the earth were dead would he rest, for they had a history. Only when every orc's blood was spewed upon a battlefield would he know that his father's killer was dead. Every arrow from this ranger's bow that met its mark was for his father. Murdered brutally by orcs in the dungeons of Orthanc only months ago. He had information promised to Sauron by Saruman.

Gandalf, the old fool, had not heeded his warning not to go to Saruman, and now, the old wizard, the Free Peoples' most powerful ally, was stuck, useless in a tower.

The orcs were moving surprisingly fast, but he couldn't reveal his hiding place until they were close enough to shoot at. Closer and closer they came, and before they could utter a single screech, one lay dead upon the grass. Then two more. In only moments, half the company was vanquished. Twang! Twang! Twang! Thunk, thunk, thunk.

He had already warned the townspeople of the oncoming attack, and they would be ready to receive the remnants of the they would think it a great battle. None of them would know of the mysterious figure who saved them from massacre by destroying over half of their opponents.

He climbed slowly down the cliff face, nimble as ever in the slippery wet. The sun was just about setting, and the clouds were clearing up, leaving a red haze on the landscape. He piled up the carcasses, and poured a sticky kind of sap from a flask at his side over the pile.

And they call me the "Radagast the Brown" of rangers. Twenty eight of the scum! He thought proudly.

Before they all burned.

The citizens of the North Downs (not to mention the rest of the world that wasn't already engaged in open war) had to remain ignorant, so that the whole population wouldn't go into a frenzy. The best weapon of the enemy was fear. It was fear that caused Mirkwood to fall into desolation, for his friend Legolas to grow up not knowing the joy of dancing in the woods alone. Before he was Sauron, the Necromancer's tower had cast a shadow over the surrounding lands, causing all who lived there to live in fear.

How I would love to journey to Mirkwood!

The wooded halls of yore!

A gate of vine and columbine

All twirled around the door!

The merry folk a'dancin!

Dressed in colors gay!

Endless walls of flowers

Bloom in endless May!

But my feet are doomed to wander

On the dreaded hills

My shadow in the doorframe

Bent to higher wills

He sang cheerfully, his freezing hands to the fire, the smell of blood upon the air.

In the morning, the ranger awoke with the feeling of knives in his neck. He picked up his bag and set out into the grey dawn to find some breakfast. He didn't know where he would go next, but after the fairly easy battle of the previous night, and the cold, cold, alone, something made him want to stop wandering and head to Rivendell…

No! Of all places not there! He would have to see… her…

The Evenstar. Her dark, long hair shining in the moonlight, pale skin making shadows that flicker in torchlight. Her beautiful grey eyes, merry and joyful, as his heart broke once again.

Yet still, it was the only place he had ever felt at home. He got along with elves better than humans, and even when he was just a little beggar boy learning to pick pockets in Bree, everyone knew that Bree Land was too small for him. He was an adventurous type, always yearning to wander, and do some great thing. That was when the rangers took him in. His father wanted him to grow up without the pressure and loneliness of defending the Free People, but once the boy heard about the noble marauding heroes, nothing could stop him.

He trained for years upon years, meditating on high cliffs with perilous falls, being thrown into an orc den at the age of fifteen and told he must fight for his life. All of this, and he was still undaunted. The glamor of the job might have dissipated in his eyes, but now there was something different… there was duty.

After weeks of trapping in the wilderness and ambushing stray orcs in foothills too close to towns, he found himself on the border of the Lone Lands. The guard, a tall, lanky fellow, and the ranger's personal friend, greeted him with a half wave and a cheerful, "Halloo! Nimrodir!" He smiled. The gatekeeper always seemed to be able to put on a happy face, no matter how many orcs came his way.

"How fare the borders, Hallad?"

"All right, as usual. Not too many orcs or vagabonds. Count yourself lucky I didn't take you for a highwayman when I first saw you - where the hell've you been?You're dirty as a pig's arse, my friend, if you've bothered to look in the mirror. But you should probably check up the river, I heard there was an encampment there. Small, though." Nimrodir had forgotten how chatty Hallad was. He wasn't as ignorant as most, though, and that said a lot.

After their few short words, Nimrodir started on his way once again. The pinnacle of Weathertop loomed in the distance, and the sky remained a cheerless grey for the remainder of the week. When scouting for the bony beasts that roamed the monotonous plains, he came upon a horse, half dead and bleeding from its right flank. The rust on the scab indicated old, or crudely made weaponry. Orcs, and nearby as well. Normally, he would have tended to the horse. This was his fatal mistake. The trees began to rustle.

Slowly, he stood up and turned around, just in time to see the dull glint of a poorly camouflaged helmet in the bushes at the foot of Weathertop. He barely had enough time to jump before three monstrous orcs leapt thirteen feet into the air, and fifteen across, out of the bushes. Their weapons raised, they charged at Nimrodir, their heavy footsteps on the ground as his own pounding heart.

It was his reflexes that saved him, and he jumped up to grab the scraggly branch of a tree, right before the knife would have plummeted into his head. The things were humongous! The branches broke as they tried to climb his little tree. One of them shouted something in the black speech. The other two scurried over to the one who called, the largest, ugliest, and therefore, the obvious leader.

One orc held down the horse's legs, the other its head, and the third proceeded to slowly lower the knife into it's flank. Nimrodir began to sweat. The horse's mouth frothed, and it whinnied and twitched as the harsh, rusty knife plunged deeper into its side. Nimrodir's bow lay useless on the ground. Some madness took him, and before even he himself knew it, he was on the ground wrestling with the knife wielding orc. He felt large, strong fingers grab him around the head, and smash his face one, two, three times on the tree.

Bleeding heavily and disoriented, he felt woozy as a painful warmth spread over his face. The ground spun beneath his feet. The big orc turned away, and Nimrodir reacher out his hands.

SNAP!

The crack of the leader's neck breaking echoed across the hills, or so it seemed to Nimrodir and the other orcs. He looked a nightmare as he picked up one of the arrows from his fallen quiver and approached the other two. Not noticing that one was clinging to his back, and the other punching his face, he stabbed it once through the head, and did a sort of backhand to get the other one. After both were dead, he collapsed, and laid there for a long, long time.

When he awoke, it was dark out. A fire blazed nearby. Voices murmured, and the sweet smell of meat tantalized his nose. He tried to walk forward, but his hands were tied behind his back, to a wooden pole. A river rushed nearby, he could hear it. The wounded horse was next to him. Not dead. This satisfied him, though he didn't know why. It looked like a mean, starved beast, to say the least. He looked down, realizing where he was, but it was too late.

"Look, boys. The scum's woken." A gravelly voice spoke. Looking up, Nimrodir saw a dark face stained with white paint, in the vague symbol of a hand. He hardly had time to think: Where have I seen that before?

Before the first kick fell to his stomach. He doubled over, his face red. A hand grabbed his head and forced his chin up. Nimrodir used his forehead to hit the orc's nose, and it scuttled away, leaving the larger one, the mutated form of an orc who had kicked him, glaring at him cruelly.

"Ha! This one's a ranger all right. Keep an eye on him, Grizlush. The white wizard might want him."

The white wizard! A wave of nausea struck him and he hurled up his last meal onto the floor, before having a fit of the dry heaves. His hair hung matted to his cheeks.

"I don't think he's a ranger, Cap'n. A ranger wouldn't swoon and hurl like a girl." They laughed once again. It seemed that they laughed at everything, and when they did, it was like nails on a chalkboard.

Nimrodir became dizzy and his legs went slack. He fell on his knees, and then hit the pole he was tied to as his brain gave up to its hunger and fatigue. He woke up feeling and smelling disgusting. He was draped over a warg, and a scared looking one at that, probably a less harmful one that the orcs had picked up in the Lone Lands. He needed to pretend to be asleep to that the orcs torment wouldn't begin again. He lay in an uncomfortable silence and pondered what he had discovered.

The white wizard must be Saruman. I knew he was gathering an army, but would he go so far as to mutate the orcs? One so high could not fall so far in such a short amount of time. And now I am captured. If I am to save Gandalf from the clutches of Saruman, I must first escape myself.

For some reason, panic took him over. He wanted to live, to see the world, and the day the orcs were gone. But he was not supposed to care about himself, his wants. It was for the good of Middle Earth that he was a ranger. Not for valiance or fame.

The orcs, or Uruk-Hai, as they called themselves, stopped by a river. It was the border of the Trollshaws, and though evil was spreading through that land, the elves still had a strong hold over it. They were headed to Eregion, and then to Dunland, and then, of course, to Isengard. Nimrodir could move much faster once he escaped from the orcs, (how would he do that, again?) but they were all going to the same place. His best bet was to stick with them until the Gap of Rohan, and then make his way on foot or preferably on horseback. He eyed the stamping, champing horse he had gotten into this mess to rescue.

He was never good at riding. Never as good as Aragorn, at least. Everyone loved him. It wasn't that Nimrodir hated him, he was an amiable, valiant man. It was simply jealousy. Arwen loved him. That was all there was to it. In his starved daze, he thought of her. He sat far from the campfires of the orcs, thinking of her. He would give anything to go to Rivendell and see her just once. After that, he would gladly die.

The orcs ran for days, stopping for a short time every five hours. They were nearing the Gap. Nimrodir was too weak to escape. They were a large company, too. There was no way he could flee alone. One night, after the tents had been set up and Nimrodir set down by one of them, he felt a knife at his throat. He didn't know who it was, but they had probably come to kill him. "Please. Make it quick." He pleaded in a whisper.

"Don't be a fool! I've come to save you! Why are you here? No! Not now, hurry, we must away." A pale hand wielding an elven knife cut his bonds. He scrambled back away from the ring of tents. His footfalls were clumsy, his muscles sore and cramped. He turned to face his rescuer once they had reached what was obviously his campfire. He had a white horse, and but one saddlebag.

He - no - she threw her hood back. It was Arwen. Nimrodir was shocked. He slid down against the wall of rock that concealed the camp. He wished her away! Why had she come to torment him further! He held his head in his hands.

"Why are you here?" He asked, looking up with so much sorrow in his eyes.

"I came to save you. I heard from a little bird that you had been captured by the Uruk-Hai." She said, perfectly serious. Nimrodir laughed painfully. He had forgotten that she could talk to certain animals. It was just one of the things that made her so amazing. His eyes flicked to where he favorite pendant usually was. It was gone.

She noticed his observation, and blushed. "You must rest. I will treat your wounds in the morning." She turned away and pretended to adjust her saddlebags.

"I am on a mission, you know. Gandalf has been captured by Saruman. He has gone to the side of the enemy."

"That is preposterous. I never knew you as one to jest, and never about something so serious." She turned away again, looking shaken and angry.

"That is what I warned Gandalf, and he responded with your answer. Now he is captured. I'll try to rescue him, but he will be late even so. Tell your father." Elrond always liked Nimrodir. Perhaps it was some act of rebellion that Arwen chose the man whom her father so strongly disapproved of. No, it couldn't be. Aragorn was raised by Elrond. I don't know anything about their relationship. Why am I so intent upon this one woman?

Nimrodir sighed and rolled over. Once Arwen laid down next to her horse, Nimrodir spoke. "You will let me go to Isengard. Don't try to stop me. If you don't want to see for yourself, so be it. Good night." He said, in a softer tone. There was no response. He wouldn't be so cold to her if the circumstances were different, but that was not the case. It was completely uncalled for. She could have sent anyone else. Why herself? Did she take joy, as so many other women do, in tormenting their victims admirers