AN: Yes yes, its been a while. But hey, atleast i write, or try to write from time to time. Im an asshole, I know I know.

disclaimer: I only own the original caracters and the plotline (havent completely figured that out yet) all else is the property of their respective owners.

CH6:

A week had gone by since the orcs blocked their exit, most of the wounded had either died or recovered enough to move, the camp had been cleared out and supplies counted. The idea of essentially getting free armour and weapons was tantalizing to many men and they had bolstered their ranks quite a bit, although not enough, he still had a severely understaffed unit of witch many were now rookies with no basic training. Polothir had been stressed with more work as alot of his command staff had died and he tried to help the normal footsoldiers with everyday tasks when he could. And when he had free time he spent time with Drogomir

Luckily some of the bored rangers had taken to looking through the caves, because they didnt want to work, and had found that there was a draft going through the cave, that meant that there was another exit. Since then all the rangers had been released from normal duties and were issued map drawing equipment to make a map of the caves.

Polothir was looking through his maps, for the millionth time since they got trapped, trying to compare the latest maps of the caves with the map of the area, trying to determine where an exit could be and what was the direction his men should prefer heading towards.

He heard a commotion outside of his tent flaps and turned to one of his guards and nodded towards him, the soldier drew his sword, picked up his shield and walked out of the tent. A minute passed with some mumbling on the other side with more people joining in on the conversation, finally Polothir had enough, "What in the blazes are you talking about out there, if its important, enter, if its not, leave. Its as easy as that." All went quiet outside and after a couple of seconds the guard he had sent out returned with a ranger in tow, Polothir recognized the soldier as one of the forward scouts that were in the eastern tunnels.

He immediatelly drew a conclusion that the soldier was trying to sneak past his duties "Whats the meaning of this soldier, you are suppose to be in the tunnels looking for a way out, not in the camp lollygagging." The soldier looked at him bewildedly, shook his head and handed him a piece of parchment that had drawings on it.

"Sir, I returned to bring news that we found a way out, it is a small cave entrance that is covered in thick vines, we need axes to break through, i was told by my commanding officer to requisition them and bring some strong men to the caves." The soldier snapped off a salute and stretched his hand out in expectance of the requisition note.

Polothir looked surprised for a second, he knew there was a way out but didnt expect his scouts to find it so quickly, but composed himself and scribbled some words on a piece of parchment and handed it to the waiting ranger and nodded, effectivly dismissing the scout.

Polothir rose up and took a half full glass of red wine from his table and drank the whole glass. 'Why is it always the wine that runs out first'

He put the glass back on his desk and walked outside his tent. If you looked at the camp now the only thing that would say that there had been a battle recently was the still smoking pile of orcs that was as far from the camp as possible and the blocked entrance to the valley.

He started walking calmly towards one of his officers "Halpir, i need you to spread the word, we are leaving this valley, get the rookies packing up supplies and tents and have first company start martching into the tunnels. Here, take this map and give it to them." Halpir looked bewildered for a second, then shoved the map into his poutch, nodded and ran towards a cluster of tents where first company was during their downtime.

Polothir thought of their casualties, how a unit of 10 companies could be trimmed down to 3 and a little bit to spare was eye opening. It said quite clearly that it doesnt matter how many men you have, let down your guard or get arrogant and you could lose it all. Only 200 men of his 300 were trained soldiers first company was composed fully of veterans while second and third was split down the middle with rookies and veterans.

Polothir walked back into his tent, packed his stuff and helped his bodyguards take down his personal tent. As he was helping his men he saw that the camp looked like someone had stomped on an anthill because there was alot of people running around, packing supplies and taking down tents.

Soon the men and women were starting to move into the caves. First company had sent back a runner that reported that the rangers had broken through the vines with their help and had secured the exit. Now all they had to do was follow the path marked on the map and make it out of the caves. After a couple of hours of walking down the tunnels they had to stop because the lead cart of the supply convoy had lost one of its wheels and it had to be replaced. while his underling were working Polothir and his guard force were at the head of the convoy and were milling about when one of the soldiers under his command put his hand on the wall he was leaning against. His hand activated a pressure plate that was hidden under moss and made the wall he was leaning against to slide open like a door and causing the man to fall through the doorway and down what sounded like a long set of stairs.

The whole unit was shocked, they were all looking at the opening like it had eaten one of them, whitch it had. They were all so shocked that until a painfull groan game through the doorway none of them dared to move. Polothir immediatelly started shouting orders to his unit. "Ramir, Lomeromir, follow me, the rest of you, guard this entrance."

The guards that were named picked up their torches and went through the doorway and Polothir followed them. The light of the torches revealed a staircase that looked old, ancient even, it had a thick layer of dust on it and was clean only in places that the soldier that took the fast way down had fallen on. 'atleast the dust must have softened some of the tumble' thought Polothir as he and his two men went down the ancient stairs, being careful not to take a misstep and tumble downstairs.

Ramir was the first to open his mouth, witch wasnt unusual since he was the most talkative man in the unit and Lomeromir was his polar oposite in that department, speaking only if needed.

"Damn, this place looks older than my grandmother, and shes ancient. Hey captain, am i the only one that sees the runes carved on the walls?"

Polothir had not been paying attention to the walls so when he took his eyes off the stairs and looked closely, he could see some faded runes and pictures depicting what looked to be dwarves in a forge, hammering away on a piece of metal. 'Must be dwarven runes then' was his first thought as he cleaned a picture using his hand.

Polothir looked at Ramir and satarted giving him instructions "Ramir, do you know the blacksmith that traveled with us from dwarf. Whats his name, Flan or something like that. Anyway, get him down here and tell him to try and decipher these runes, we have a limited amount of time before we need to move on and I would like to know what this place is."

"Yes sir, I know him his name is Floi. He made me my custom armour before we left port. Ill go get him." With those words Ramir took off up the stairs in full sprint, leaving Lomeromir and Polothir to continue down the stairs.

Along the way they saw multible beautiful pieces of supposedly dwarwen carvings, a couple of pieces of gondorian armour that had fallen off the tumbling soldier. What felt like hours later but was actually ten or so minutes they finally made it down the stairs. What they found infront of them was an unconsious soldier and a big spider towering over the soldier.
For Polothir it felt like time had slowed down to a crawl. The spider had its stinger out, ready to inject venom into his soldier. He saw Lomeromir was going for his sword but Polothir knew that he couldnt get it out in time. So he rushed the beast, putting his shield infront of him to cover his body, he collided with the beast. The spider was so shocked about the sudden attack that he couldnt do anything and was just frozen as Polothir used the edge of his shield to separate two of his legs from his body. That snapped the spider out of it as it started to use its mandibles to grab onto Polothirs shield and throw it away from him. Then it registere d for the creature that it didnt have two legs on one side anymore so it should be more careful on where to put its balance, so the spider fell down onto its face and that had bought Lomeromir enough time to draw his sword, step close to the beast and bury his sword into its face. The spider died and stopped twitching.

Polothir immediatelly drew his sword in preparation of another spider attack but he didnt see any more spiders in the room with them. That didnt mean he would let down his guard, oh no. He went to each of the three exits to the grand hall he was in and looked for any more spiders. Luckily he saw none and as he returned to Lomeromir and Purtzir, the guy who fell down the stairs he saw that the only major thing that was wrong with him was that his face was a bit bloody. Somehow the kid hadnt broken his neck, taking the express route down and was mostly ok. Only unconseous but that could be easyly fixed. Meanwhile Lomeromir was applying some salve on the wounds and bandaging them.

Lomeromir and Polothir quickly patched Purtzir up and were ready to leave when Polothir saw something moving in the corner of his eye. He immediatly reacted by pushing his men away from him and jumping. Too little too late. The spider that was lurking in the shadows had jumped and had pulled Polothir away with him. Polothir landed with an audible cruntch in the corner of the room, the spider not far behind. As luck would have it Polothirs belt had descided to break off its master and was lying next to Lomeromir and Purtzir. The spider was on Polothir. one of his gaunleted hands was in the beasts face, trying to stop it from biting his head off and the other was trying to find a rock, or anything sharp on the ground whitch he could use to kill the eight legged bastard.

Just as the spider had decided to smarten up and use its forelegs to impale him his hand found something, a hilt, he didnt care if it was a sword or something else. The only thing he cared about was killing that damn spider. He dodged a mandible and using that movement grasped the hilt of the improvised weapon and with a swing decapitated the spider, cutting off its front legs in the process.

The spider fell ontop of Polothir, who was energized by the sudden shot of adrenaline that the attack had caused, he pushed the spider off of him and for the first time studied the blade that had saved his life. The blade was black, a deep all consuming black. But it did not feel evil, on the contrary, it felt for a lack of a better term, perfect. The handguard looked like it was made of silver and the grip looked like normal iron(Type into google 'Carracks Black Sword' and look at the third image in the second row, thats the basic design of the sword, the grip is like Narsils) but merely by toutching it Polothir understood that it was no mere iron.

Runes were etched onto the blade, they did not look like the dwarven runes that they saw coming down the stairs, nor the smooth elvish runes nor the sloppy and cruel runes of the black speetch. They looked like a combination of the elvish and dwarven runes, having the sharp corners of the dwarvish runes but having somehow retained the beautiful flowing nature of elvish runes.

Polothir shook his head.´Now is not the time to try and decipher writimgs that are upon a sword´. And indeed, by the screetching sounds that were coming from one of the doorways leading out of the chamber, they had about 20 secondsa until more giant spiders were upon them. Polothir quickly ran over to Lomeromir who had just stood up and was helping Purtzir up. They placed one of Purtzirs hands on Lomeromirs shoulder and one on Polothirs shoulder and they started dragging the unconsious man up the stairs. It was no easy task, considering Putzir was in full armour nad they had to drag him and stay ahead of the giant spiders that were chasing them. A minute later the spiders were nipping their heels. Polothir ducked under Purtzirs arm leaving the man for Lomeromir to carry and lifted his new sword. The first spider was impaled instantly. Polothir pulled out his sword and hacked off a couple of legs that were trying to get over their comrade. Suddenly one of the spiders jumped over the dead corpse and Polothir impaled it with his new sword, dropping it because more spiders were jumping over the corpse of their now dead comrade. Polothir dashed towards the coming opposition, hoping to seal off the tunnel with the spiders own corpses. He reached for his sheathed sword and only then realised that his sword was still in the chamber where his belt fell with the tussle with the spider. It was too late to slow down, so he rammed shoulder first into the first spider in his way, knocking it back and giving him time to grab the two spider legs that were on the ground. He threw one into the face of the first spider and when the second one jumped over the corpse he jammed the second one into its mouth as it was in the air. Polothir turned around as fast as possible and ran to the corpse holding his sword. He pulled the sword out and ran up the stairs. hoping that the two spiders stacked ontop of eachother would be enough to hold the rest of the horde at bay.

He had never ran that fast in his life. he dashed up the stairs. And when he reached his retreating soldiers he once again helped carry Purtzir. When they reached Ramir and the dwarf Floi they were sweating like they had just done a marathon, for all intents and purposes, they had. Carrying someone wearing full body armour and having the same armour yourself and running full tilt up the stairs is not something people do for fun.

"Ah captain, I see you have returned with the soldier that discovered this magnificent archive of my peoples history. Why are you running?" The dwarf looked both jovial and confused. Jovial over finding something so signifficant to his people and confused at why the men where running. Floi was a dwarf in the end of his second century of life, that means he was not as brash as he was a couple decades ago. He had dark brown hair, bordering on black and a huge beard, as was the tradition of his people. He was from the blacklock clan. A decade ago he had decided to go to gondor, and when he saw how much they needed blacksmiths, he had staye, and worked for the men, for a high pice, of cource. He had signed his name on the list of departurers after a rather rowdy night in one of the osgiliath Taverns, the tavern had got a new shipment of dwarven ale and he had, for the first time in a human realm, gotten drunk. But if a dwarf signed something, even if drunk, he would carry through with it, so he reported to the docks with his smithy packed up and joined the expedition.

Lomeromirs was tired, he had never made a dash like that, and because he was tired, he slipped. He dropped Purtzir because Polothir could not adjust to him being the only one carrying Purtzir. They bent over to pick him back up and heard the spiders coming closer.

"RUN. RUN YOU FOOLS" was all Polothir could yell before the spiders came into view from the darkness of the stairs.

Floi and Ramir immediatelly started running while Lomeromirs and Polothir started to lift up Purtzir. They had just gotten the man up when disaster struck. There was a sound of metal breaking and flesh beeing torn apart, then a scream. A terrifying scream of agony. Polothir turned around and saw Lomeromirs grasping at his stomach, where a spiders leg had gotten stuck at. Lomeromirs´ face went from agony to surprise, then it turned into rage. Lomeromirs drew his sword and turned around, snapping the leg from the joint. He started hacking at the spiders like a madman yelling profanities and challenges at the spiders. Polothir allready knew how it was going to end, his bodyguard was dead, he knew it, Polothir knew it and the spiders knew it. But he was going to die fighting.

Polothir turned around and picked Purtzir back up and started sprinting towards the doorway that was now in sight.

He ran through the doorway and immediatelly dumped the unconsious man he was carrying to the ground and started closing the door. His bodyguards who had been milling about started to help him without asking questions. Within seconds the door was as much closed as they could manage on a door that swings inside when opened.

Polothir immediatelly leaned against a wall and slid down. He found that he was still tightly gripping the sword that he had found in the tunnel.

TBC

A/N: Okay so to compensate for the longer away time i made this chapter a bit longer than the others. Anyway, if you would be so kind, leave a review, a PM, anything really. if someone could volounteer as a beta and explain to me how that system works then that would be just dandy. Anyway ill try to get another update out faster than this one but no promises.