Note:
My best friend, Anna, and I were watching Lord of the Rings and decided that the Fellowship, while well meaning, is a bit of flailing mess. We therefore came to the sound conclusion that should Elrond have thought to invite Anna and I to Rivendell, we would have been rid of the Ring in only a couple of weeks and with minimal casualties.
This story started as a joke between Anna and I, and escalated into something epic. This is utterly irreverent , self-indulgent (but diligently researched!) silliness. You should almost certainly read Fellowship first.
In this chapter, Nelwen escapes from the Uruk-hai. I don't really like this section. It was hard to write. Except the bit at the end where Nel get's uncharacteristically brutal – that was fun!
Strapped to the back of a hulking Uruk-hai, Nelwen vowed to never again make disparaging comments about the personal hygiene of her travelling companions. Choking on air, stale and rancid, Nelwen dreamed of soft breezes through the golden leaves of Lorien and tried to breath through her mouth. For days the beasts had travelled west, with her as captive, never stopping, not even to sleep or eat. It had been so long since Nel had eaten anything that her body was wracked with shivers and stabbing pain. Her arms were numb from where they were strapped around the neck of her captor and the skin on her left cheek was red and raw from where it had been rubbing against the Uruk-hai's armoured back.
The long column of Uruk-hai passed through a small gulley and, without warning, stopped. Nel strained to see what was happening, spied a small group of orcs emerge from the rocky walls of the ravine and approach the Uruk-hai. There had been a time when Nel found the orcs terrifying, now they seemed so small and scrawny in comparison to her captors, almost feeble. She could just make out a few snatched words as they talked. Something about a tree-rat (was that her?) and delivering Saruman's prize.
So they were taking her to Isengard. Of course she'd guessed that that was their destination some time ago but her stomach flipped at the confirmation that she was indeed heading for Saruman. She took minor solace in the knowledge that the Ring was safe with her companions but that solace was largely over-shadowed by the gut-wrenching certainty that Saruman was going to kill her.
An Uruk-hai in her peripheral vision aggressively sniffed the air before barking, "man-flesh!" The horde of Uruk-hai bristled and rumbled at this announcement, hands reflexively twitching towards weapons. A large, long-haired Uruk-hai marched from the front of the column, their leader she supposed, and shouted, "they have picked up our trail! Let's move!"
Nelwen felt a cautious fluttering of hope. The rangers were following! Maybe Annamir was not as inept at rangering as she had always assumed! Desperately, she looked around her, trying to spy some method for communicating with the humans, some way of showing them that she was still alive. Noticing the metallic glimmer at her throat, she bit down hard on the elven broach on her cloak, tugged it free and spat it onto the ground. It was a dainty thing, elegantly carved in silver and decorated with enamel of a vivid myrtle green. Hopefully it would be spotted, despite its diminutive size, and the humans would know that she still lived.
The Uruk-hai continued with their hurried march, fording across the Onodlo river and into West Emnet. As nighttime descended, the horde came to a stop at the edge of an ancient forest. Nelwen had fallen asleep as they travelled but was startled awake as she was unceremoniously shucked to the ground. Her head reeled, overwhelmed by her sudden awakening and the waves of pain that wracked her body from its abrupt introduction to the ground. As she rocked back and forth in pain, she thought back to the meeting in Elrond's study all those months ago and wished above all else that she had told him to bugger off.
Distantly she could hear the whining of orcs, their shrill voices distinct from the low, echoing timbre of Uruk-hai voices. To her left stretched a dark curtain of trees and she watched as Uruk-hai lumbered forward to hack at the branches, gathering firewood no doubt. As their broad-swords tore branch from trunk, a muted keen, low and slow and roiling, rose into the night air. Nelwen's head perked up with curiosity. Interesting. With her elven ears, she listened, listened to the sighs and whimpers, softly rumbling like a faraway storm, rising then ebbing in turn from the forest. If she didn't know any better, she would have thought that the rolling grumble sounded almost… conversational. This was no simple copse of trees, she realised; this was Fangorn.
An argument drew her from her reverie as a piercing, nasal voice lamented his lack of food. "I'm starving! We ain't had nothing but maggoty bread for three days! Can't we have some meat?!" Murmurs of assent rippled through the mass of orcs and Uruk-hai. "What about her? She's fresh…" said a small, bug-eyed orc, tilting his head and regarding her greedily. She bristled, her fear of meeting Saruman immediately replaced with the more pressing fear of being gutted right here at the foot of the Fangorn forest. Suddenly all eyes were on her, the throng of orcs and Uruk-hai jostling one another to take a good look at the fresh meat at their disposal. The leader she had noted from before surged forward, standing between her and her audience. "She is not for eating!"
"What about her legs? She doesn't need those… they look tasty…"
The leader took his broad-sword from his back, swept it in a wide arc in front of him as a warning. "Keep back! The prisoner goes to Saruman – alive and unspoiled."
"Alive! Why alive?!" came a disgruntled cry. Frustrated chatter heaved through the multitude, each body thrumming with irritation and defiance.
"She has something – an elvish weapon – the master wants it for the war."
Nelwen started when an orc appeared from behind her, wrapped a knobbled hand around her collar. "Just a mouthful," he said with yearning, a globule of spittle rolling down his chin and dripping on to her shoulder. "A bit off the flank."
With two great bounds, the Uruk-hai leader stepped forward, pivoting his sword and decapitating the orc in one clear swoop.
"Tonight we dine on meat!" he announced gleefully, lifting the headless orc in one hand and throwing it towards his soldiers. They ripped into the carcass greedily, tearing meat from limbs and snorting at entrails. With horror she sat and watched as the Uruk-hai turned on the orcs among them, ripping them apart with bare hands, not even bothering to kill them before sinking their teeth into putrid flesh.
For a moment Nel considered whether she felt sorry for the orcs as they were eaten alive by their kin. But the moment passed and Nel suddenly realised that no one was watching her, all attention drawn by the orc feast. Silently, she crawled across the ground towards the tree-line, her movements slow and clumsy due to her bindings. She'd managed to crawl a fair distance from her captors, was only a few metres from the edge of the forest, when a boot came down on her back, pinning her to the ground. Rough hands hauled her up, turned her over, and she found herself face-to-face with the ashen face of a gnarled, crooked orc. His small, curved dagger pressed at her neck.
"Go on – call for help! Squeal! No one is going to save you now."
"Fuck off!" she snarled through gritted teeth, jabbing her fists into the orc's throat. Clearly she'd spent too much time with Annamir and had adopted the ranger's questionable vocabulary and penchant for fighting dirty. The orc choked and spluttered, giving Nelwen the opening she needed to grab hold of the dagger at her throat. She wrenched it free from shaking hands and stabbed it into his cheek, slicing upwards to leave the caricature of a grin on the side of his face. With a strangled snarl, he rolled off of her, clutching at his face with trembling hands, his whole body wracked with spasms of pain. She reared up, straddled the creature's chest, and plunged the dagger into an eye socket, twisting the blade until his movements ceased, save the occasional involuntary twitch.
Her front was soaked with orc blood; it coated the hilt of the dagger and squelched between her fingers as she cut through the rope binding her hands. Now that the adrenaline was subsiding, her hands began to tremble. Pulling herself to her feet and stumbling around the corpse she'd made, she was a little alarmed at her brutality. But she had no time to grapple with her conscience as her elven ears picked up the sound of hooves advancing, hundreds of creatures running at break-neck speed. She didn't know whether Uruk-hai used mounts, whether reinforcements from Isengard were approaching. Or maybe it was humans riding near, although she didn't know whether she, an elf in Rohan, would be well-received. Deciding that she'd rather not stand, alone and vulnerable, and find out, Nel made for the forest.
As she reached the tree-line and disappeared into the undergrowth, she heard behind her the sound of flying spears, the sound of clashing swords and the sound of iron-clad hooves trampling flesh. Beastly howls punctuated the night air. Whoever these riders were, they were slaughtering the pack of Uruk-hai. Good.
