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-o-

The mist had finally lifted, leaving the sky clear, blue and cloudless. But all did not remain still for long. Rasping growls and the clanking of metal rent the mid-morning air, feet trampling the grass without care.

"Move it, you maggots!" shouted Nagdash, whose typically bad mood was made even worse by the two very slowly-moving captives. The ranger was still walking but very tired, and the blond man whom they had captured the night before could barely stand. He had been passed to nearly every Orc in the company, who carried him slumped over their shoulders until they began to complain. Between the two of them, they had managed to slow things down considerably.

They still had not gotten the young soldier of Gondor to speak. He walked in defiant silence despite all their taunts and only stared back at his captors until they uncomfortably looked away. Nagdash was the only one who could contend in this staring competition without so much as flinching. Orcs rarely feel respect for anyone or anything, but in this man Nagdash had felt he had a worthy opponent. He would expect no less from the Captain of his adversaries.

The Great Eye had given all of the Orcs who roamed in Ithilien strict orders not to kill the Captain of the Ithilien Rangers, if they ever captured him. Sauron knew that Faramir, as a great leader, could be of much use to him as a bargaining chip and it was better that he be kept alive. That much was no secret to the Orcs. Even the most dim-witted of them knew what their lord wanted the tark Captain for. Of course it still didn't stop Nagdash's company from staring at Nethir hungrily from time to time but they all knew what awaited them if they disobeyed orders.

What the Orc-captain did not know was exactly what his Dark Master had devised for the other man, the one with the odd black metal rims around his eyes. He only knew that somehow, he was important to the war they were fighting against those Men of the western realms, of which he knew little. In fact, he knew little about anything, other than slaughter, rape and plunder; but, being slightly more intelligent than his subordinates, he knew simply to do his Master's bidding and ask questions later. Especially if it meant that by doing so he could rise up the ranks of the Dark Armies.

He also knew that, unless they reached the Morannon, the Gate of Mordor, very soon, those in charge would certainly be looking for him. And then he would have it. Probably at the hands—or fangs—of Shelob. No, Nagdash was not overly fond of Shelob. He did not intend to pay her a visit any time soon.

He had a job to do, and that job was to get everyone out of the woods and to Mordor as quickly as possible. There was an uneasy sort of feeling he had, though, niggling at the back of his mind. It was hard to pick a path through the trees, for they all looked the same. Tall sort of things that grew close together, with light green foliage and a scent he had never smelt before.

Had he known it, they were going in circles.

"Slugs! Maggots! Move along!" he barked, taking his mind off his worrying thoughts and lashing out at his company.

"They can't go no farther!" snarled Shraknar, his lieutenant, waving an arm expansively over the rest of the band, who were all breathing heavily, snorting and snuffling, some leaning against nearby trees for support. Nagdash leaned back and surveyed them all with his pitiless yellow eyes. He was right. Uruks they were, but they had been going all night and now a good part of the morning. It puzzled him that they did not seem to be getting anywhere after all this time. This infernal forest must have been a lot larger than he thought.

"Alright!" he snapped. "We'll stop here. But we'll not be staying long." He bared his fangs in a feral smirk. "Otherwise it's Shelob and the tunnel for us!"

There were a few snarls and growls in response.

In the meantime, Nethir was made to sit down, his hands still bound whilst one of the Orcs tied his ankles together. They had done away with the gag by now because he had spoken not a word, and they had gathered that he probably would not any time soon. The other captive was nearly thrown off the shoulders of the Orc carrying him and he slumped to the ground, a pained-sounding groan escaping him as he did so.

Nethir winced. The poor man was only half-conscious of his surroundings, only occasionally whimpering or speaking to himself with a strange, accented tongue. He would probably recover more in an hour or so, when the effects of being nearly knocked senseless eventually wore off. The Orcs had not even bothered to bind him, seeing that he was in no state to flee.

As a ranger of Ithilien in the service of Captain Faramir—whom he greatly admired and respected—Nethir had grown used to many aspects of living in the wild. Rationed food, little opportunities for bathing. But the one thing he could not get used to, despite his newly-developing skills as a ranger, was the smell, the foul smell of Orcs, both dead and alive. So before Nagdash's face came hovering down to his level, in all its wart-ridden atrocity, he could smell him. No amount of washing and scrubbing would ever rid an Orc of that stench.

"Eat." It was not a request, it was a command. Holding up his tied wrists, Nethir took the piece of dried meat Nagdash shoved in his direction. The huge Uruk tromped away at a disturbance between two of his subordinates and he cuffed one of them over the head, barking out a guttural curse. Truth to be told, Nethir was amazed that they had not simply killed him yesterday. Violent slaughter was the way that Orcs always dealt with any of the unfortunate rangers whom they occasionally managed to find. Why was he singled out thus?

"My Lord Faramir!"

Nethir happened to turn around at that moment, only to see one of his fellow soldiers running toward him. Mablung stopped in surprise.

"Oh. 'Tis only you, Nethir...

This little flash of memory set Nethir's mind spinning in confusion. Was it possible that Nagdash thought he was Captain Faramir?

How extraordinary, he thought to himself. At least he now had some sort of explanation as to why they were taking him bound to Mordor, rather than simply killing him off. The Orcs had been sent for that purpose. Sauron had long set a price on the heads of the Steward's sons. Once they discovered that he was not whom they thought he was, a cruel death would probably be his fate.

But he still did not have the slightest clue what they would want with the other man, who was struggling to sit up and now leaned against the bole of the tree behind him.

Looking at his fellow captive, Nethir wondered at how strange his clothing was, and not for the first time. He was wearing loose leggings of some sort with a blue tunic, and some sort of dark blue piece of material around his neck. Nethir wondered drily whether it was a halter, though he doubted that the man was wearing it in the hopes of finding an opportunity to kill himself, even in the company of bestial Uruks. But the most intriguing thing about him was the piece of metal that framed his eyes and was joined in the middle by a beam that sat firmly on his nose. Nethir had never seen anything like it.

One of the Orcs had apparently been just as fascinated with the thing as Nethir and had grabbed it off him, trying to fit it onto his broad, crooked features. It was nearly comical to see Golbog staring confusedly through the glass that covered each round frame, the other Uruks howling with laughter as he staggered around as if drunk, eventually walking straight into a tree and falling backwards with a thud.

The snarling and snapping continued nearby, half in Westron and half in some foul Orc dialect.

Seeing as the Uruks were once again squabbling amongst themselves, Nethir turned to his companion and decided to try and communicate with him.

"What is your name?" he asked gently in the Sindarin tongue, thinking that he would understand it.

The other man only stared at him blankly.

-o-

Every doubt Eryn had previously had about the existence of Orcs vanished from her mind as if they had never been. The beast in the doorway stared at her for a moment with nearly as much shock as she felt. But the look in his yellow eyes was replaced with something far more horrible as he reached for his scimitar, whose handle was rusted and bloodied.

Eryn wanted to scream at the top of her lungs until her throat was raw but she couldn't. Fear twisted her gut and froze her vocal chords so that all that came out was a terrified, pathetic croak.

Tagruk's face twisted into a grin as he watched the female Mortal hyperventilate and slowly back into a corner. She could be easily subdued before he went after the male. A swift thrust, a cut across the throat, was all it took to kill off young Mortals.

The way the horrid creature was surveying her made Eryn's rapidly beating heart crawl up her throat. He was far too close, and the tiny kitchen put little distance between them. He was beginning to advance, weapon drawn, and she could already smell the rotting stench of death that clung to him like a foul blanket.

This was certainly turning out to be a very bad morning.

With a roar the Orc swung its blade, narrowly missing Eryn as she ducked with a gasp and ran to where the drawers were. Light-headedness and adrenaline made her eyes swim and head pound as she hastily fumbled around with shaking hands through the cutlery and pulled out a large kitchen knife. Eryn knew absolutely nothing about fighting or killing at all; all she knew was that the best thing to defend herself with was something sharp and pointy.

Not that I have much of a chance anyway, she thought, her heart sinking as the Orc raised its black-encrusted blade again. She managed once more to escape it, but again only just. Already her strength was beginning to flag and it had not even been much of a battle.

He stood over her now, a growl in the back of his throat, readying himself to deal the final blow. Glancing at the sink, she saw that amongst the dishes still sitting there was a bowl, filled with some sort of mixture of detergent and lukewarm soup remnants. With one last desperate effort, she took it and threw the whole lot into the Orc's surprised face. He shrieked as whatever was in it stung his eyes. But he once again lunged forward blindly with his blade, nicking Eryn's arm and making her cry out with the sudden pain. The cut could not have been very deep but the blood immediately oozed from it, trickling down her arm.

Though the Orc could not see well, he had cornered her again, infuriated and with eyes watering. It was not how she thought it would end, at the hands of some ugly creature that should only have existed in myth. But in that moment, one tiny part of her awoke, one that wasn't quivering with frantic despair, which told her not to yield to just yet.

Seizing the moment she leapt forward with what sounded like a battle cry, embedding the knife into the side of his thick neck and shrieking in horror when she felt the gruesome resistance of flesh and sinew against the blade. Blood, sweat and vile stench was all she knew before the Orc staggered backwards out of the kitchen, nearly pulling her with it, her hand still holding the knife in a death grip. She let go, blood spilling onto her hand, and the Orc crashed lifeless to the floor, black blood spurting from his fatal wound, yellow eyes forever holding an expression of agonised surprise.

By this time Eamonn had rushed into the dining room and nearly tripped over the dead Orc, who had quite literally fallen into his path. Hastily skirting around it, he ran into the kitchen and found Eryn, whose hands were dripping with Orc blood and whose red flannelette top was now spattered with inky black.

"I…I…I…" she stammered, her green eyes starting to fill with tears and her lip trembling. Eamonn suddenly felt an overwhelming wave of pity wash over him and was angry with himself for not being there. If the quick reflexes born of desperation had not come to her then and she had frozen with terror…he shuddered to think what could have happened and pushed those thoughts aside, only feeling relieved to see her alive.

Despite the fact that she was covered in blood, Eamonn pulled her into his arms, where she burst into tears and sobbed uncontrollably. "Shh," he murmured, reassuringly tracing circles on her back. In doing so he remembered the many occasions when he had comforted his little sister, long ago, before she quit the world and its sorrows, leaving only him and their Aunt Lori behind. Eryn had always been like a sister to him. And like a brother, he silently comforted her and let her shed hot tears.

She hiccupped and moved away, wiping her nose against her sleeve, shuddering and averting her gaze away from the dead Orc. Silently she stalked away to her room and emerged from it within a few minutes in jeans and t-shirt, her eyes strangely blank. Guilt stung Eamonn's heart when he thought how he had treated Eryn before in his near-hysteria. He had seen Orcs. She had just fought one. The bruises his fingers had left on her slender arm were briefly visible before she pulled her jacket over them. And yet she bore it with nary a word.

Her green eyes turned towards him, half veiled by thick eyelashes. "Let's go," she said quietly. Eamonn glanced at the Orc corpse, with the blood that had been flowing from its neck now only a swiftly drying trickle.

"What should we do about him?" he asked, jerking his head in the body's direction.

Eryn shook her head. "He won't be going anywhere."

"We can't just leave it here!"

"What should we do then?" Her voice was weary, but challenging all the same.

"What if someone finds it?"

"It doesn't matter, as long as whoever finds it isn't a student." She suddenly looked very uncomfortable. "Let's just go, okay?"

With a brief nod, he stood aside by the door, which was still open, as Eryn took her duffle bag and backpack outside and trudged down the stairs. He tossed his things on the landing and locked the door, leaving the horror inside shut up in its prison.

Eryn turned around as he made his way down the old wooden steps, police pursuit once again becoming a reality now that they were outside the house. "We have to get out of here. I don't fancy being yanked off the campus again."

"I know," answered Eamonn. "Come on."

Eryn felt strangely numb and a little dizzy as they once again sneaked their way off the student housing campus. The business of killing was something she had never thought about before, and something which had shaken her considerably. It was perfectly fine for her favourite characters from Lord of the Rings to decapitate and cut through the Orcs, parting through them in a lethal yet almost graceful dance. But when she herself had done it, with a bowl of soup and a kitchen knife…she swallowed heavily. It was an Orc, she told herself. It deserved to die. But the fact that she had robbed a creature of life—no matter who or what that creature happened to be—horrified her. Tears began to course down her cheeks again as she ran and she wiped furiously at her eyes. This was no time for crying and making a spectacle of herself.

"You there!"

Both Eamonn and Eryn froze and slowly turned, discovering that the voice belonged to a young police officer. Eryn recognised him as Officer Fielding, who but recently had marched her off the campus.

"Yeah?" Eamonn suppressed a wince at the way his voice came out, with that poorly disguised note of defiance in it. He only wanted to get himself and Eryn away from the place and understandably, given what had just happened, felt irritated at any obstacle that stood in his way. But Officer Fielding had his own goal to achieve, however, and the challenge rang out in his own voice as he spoke.

"Would you happen to know where to find Eamonn Codds?" he asked, eyebrow slightly raised as he whipped out his notebook.

Eamonn was startled. "Um, that's me."

"Oh?" His tone was one of mild surprise. "Then I ask that you accompany me to the station for questioning."

Nervous anticipation began to tighten his stomach. "Why?"

"We have some reason to believe that you were there last night, during the time of Billy McBride's murder."

Oh no, thought Eamonn, a ghastly sinking feeling settling in the pit of his stomach at the police officer's words. They think I was the one who did him in. They'll never believe that mythical creatures from Lord of the Rings running around on campus last night were responsible for murdering a security guard.

That, at least, was what one part of him was saying. His more calm, logical side told him that he would have to defend himself at some point and it would be best to get it out of the way now. Besides, once the investigation team found what was inside the house he and Eryn had just left, he was fairly certain that their doubts would be laid to rest. His answer was a simple nod.

"Good." Officer Fielding turned around and purposefully strode away, expecting the two students to follow him.

"Just give me a minute," mumbled Eryn, who staggered to the nearest bush and promptly emptied the roiling contents of her stomach.

A/N: Thank you for all the reviews/alerts/faves. Please take the time to make a comment. :)