Hello everybody, here with another quick update – I slotted in an extra session yesterday because I missed one earlier in the week, so here I am with another upload a day after my last chapter from Quest of the Gods. I hope that you enjoy this one – it's mostly a chapter that jumps around to tell of what's been happening to various Digimon that we haven't been focusing on very much recently. They'll all eventually get in on the action, but until then I hope you enjoy their exploits while they're separated.
Read on folks, read on.
To Be a King
Chapter 26:- The Borders of Rohan
Even though the situation was a dire one and they could not pause for thought, Aragorn could not help but feel that perhaps they were the strangest company that had possibly ever run across Middle Earth. The fact that a single Elf and Dwarf would be in the company of one another was not a normal occurrence anyway, but when you add in the two Men and the giant green-haired woman with the massive sword and the snake-arm and her little passenger in the form of the pink rabbit-like creature, together they made up one bizarre procession.
He wondered what anyone who they ran past would make of them and came to the conclusion that they might think that they had been on the ale a bit too much. Granted the Fellowship had always been a strange procession with the inclusion of the four Hobbits but since the Hobbits had left or been taken their new arrivals were that much stranger.
Still, he ran on without pausing to discuss this with the other members of his group, hurtling along the edge of a large precipice and darting around the boulder in front of him as he went, glowering out into the open expanse of grassland and rock formations that made up the area in front of him, as if hoping to see the backs of the Uruk-Hai that they were following in the distance if he stared hard enough.
But the horizon remained devoid of Uruk-Hai, and Aragorn thanked his skills as a tracker that they were still following on behind them. Although to be honest, the Uruks would not have been that hard to track for… well… anyone really. They were not exactly trying to cover up their passing, and several of them even seemed to go out of their way to make themselves followed, slashing at innocent bushes for no reason other than the fact it was fun to cut something.
Apart from that and the heavy bootprints that flattened the grass in front of him in a single long, column, Aragorn could see numerous other signs of the Uruks passing, such as the occasional scrap of dropped filthy cloth, bits of mouldy bread and, on one occasion, a corpse. A corpse with a heavy sword wound that matched Boromir's blade, meaning that the Man from Gondor had struck into this Uruk hard enough to fatally wound it, except that it had not succumbed to its injuries from some time.
The other Uruk-Hai had not stopped to help their comrade. Why would they? They had no use for a fatally wounded soldier and they were definitely not healers. If you couldn't fight, you were no use to them. They had all just run on past their fellow as he had keeled over and died on the road.
The only time the group really stopped was when Aragorn would lie down on a the ground briefly and put his ear to it, listening for the vibrations of the stamping feet of the Uruks. Despite the many miles a head that the Uruk-Hai were, he was quite capable of hearing the sounds of their slamming feet, and he was able to judge how fast they were going and how far ahead they were.
"Come," he yelled after he got up for the third time that day. "They have increased their speed. They must know that we are following us by this point. The wind was blowing from our direction to theirs yesterday. They may have caught out scent by now."
"If they know that they're being followed," Mervamon said as she ran up level with Aragorn, "You'd think they might try and hide the trail a bit better."
"They probably know that such a thing would be futile for ones such as them," Aragorn replied. "All orc species have a distinct lack of subtlety, not matter how disciplined they may be, and these Uruks were more disciplined than most orcs I have ever come across."
"Fair enough," Mervamon replied. "Are we gaining on them?"
"Hard to say," Aragorn replied. "They have not paused long in their own run either. They clearly have stamina to spare."
"As do you," Mervamon nodded. "As do all of you clearly. We've been running for almost two days now and we've barely stopped ourselves, not even for food. I have not come across a human… Man… whatever… with that kind of physical endurance before."
"I live in the wilds," Aragorn replied curtly. "You have to have endurance out there to survive."
"I see," Mervamon nodded.
"I'm getting hungry, kyu," Cutemon muttered, his stomach rumbling again as his hands clutched over it. He was the only member of the group not running and using up energy, so he knew that asking for food for himself was a little bit selfish of him, since the others had not eaten anything. Except for Boromir, who they had forced to eat something last evening because he was in need of all the strength he could get considering his recent ordeal.
Mervamon chuckled. "Well, you are a growing boy," she said. "Legolas, can I have more of that Elvish bread of yours?"
"Lembas?" Legolas asked from where he was running hard nearby. "Of course." He quickly reached into his pack and pulled out a leaf-folded slab of the waybread, which Mervamon caught in her only hand and passed up the Cutemon, who nodded gratefully and bit into it.
"I really wish… you would stop eating… in front of me," Gimli huffed along from near the back, his heavy armour clanking now and again as his shorter and stouter legs seemed to try working in overtime to allow him to keep up. "It is quite the torture."
"Sorry, kyu," Cutemon muttered, nibbling at the bread and trying to hide it from the Dwarf.
"And what is that?" Gimli asked.
"What is what?" Legolas asked warily, concerned that his keen eyes might have missed something.
"No, nothing like that. I meant… why do you end most of… your sentences… with that little 'kyu' noise?" the Dwarf looked to the Digimon.
Cutemon looked confused. "Why not?" he asked. "Is there any particular reason that I shouldn't, kyu?"
"Um… well not especially," Gimli muttered. "I suppose… each to his own and all that, even… if it is a little odd."
"It's a quirk that Cutemon's had since long before I met him," Mervamon chuckled. "How you holding up there, Gimli?"
"I fear I am in dire need of more air," Gimli said, but refused to stop running. Mervamon smiled – Gimli reminded him a little of Shoutmon in some ways, stubbornly refusing to give up despite all the troubles he went through and the obstacles in the path and no matter how bad things got. She couldn't help but feel a little more at ease because of it, even though the fact that she hadn't seen any further Digimon since she got here was irking her.
Aragorn and Legolas exchanged and look with one another, and despite the fact they were running after vicious monstrous Uruk-Hai to rescue their poor captive companions, they couldn't help but smile and chuckle a little. Neither of them had any further doubts about Mervamon or Cutemon's allegiances. While at first they were concerned they could be enemy spies and had been keeping an eye out even when they run, two days in their company has caused them both to warm to their new companions.
Granted most of those two days had been spent in relative silence because they had been focusing on running, but during the brief times they did speak Mervamon was always very friendly and very resolute, determined and encouraging to the whole group. And the extended period with which she had helped them by carrying the recovering Boromir, coupled with the fact that if she wanted to strike at them she could probably easily have killed two of them in the blink of an eye by this point with her sword and snake and yet she hadn't, had definitely elevated her trustworthiness in their minds.
And of course Cutemon was… well, cute… Even tough warrior Gimli thought so, but he would never admit it aloud of course.
They were as determined as they were to find the Hobbits and rescue them from the minions of Darkness that had taken them away.
"How about you, Boromir?" Mervamon asked, as if to prove their thoughts. "Are you feeling alright?"
The Gondorian Man was at the rear of the party, just behind Gimli. He too was breathing more heavily than Aragorn or Legolas, the latter of which seemed to be breathing as shallowly as ever and the former of which was still only breathing at a slightly fast clip, flagging slightly at the rear as he stumbled every now and again, but other than that he was charging forward as strongly as any of the others.
"Yes, thank you, Mervamon," he nodded, drawing level with Gimli as he said it. "I am feeling much fitter now, and I suppose that I have you to thank for letting me get some rest while not hindering the company. However… that said…"
"Yes, I know," Mervamon smirked. "If I ever meet your father I am not to mention to him that I slung you over my shoulder like a sack and bore you for the better part of the first day of running, correct?"
"I think I would prefer it if you mentioned it to no-one," Boromir replied. "It is quite undignified, and my men back at Gondor would probably mock me for it. Even if it was in jest, I would prefer that it didn't happen at all."
"Fine. But you're holding up better now," Mervamon confirmed.
"Much," Boromir agreed. And indeed he did seem to be doing better. He still didn't have the energy that the others seemed to have to spare because of it but he was ploughing on regardless, soldiering on like warrior and never offering any word of complaint or any grunt of exertion.
"You guys are really cool, kyu," Cutemon voiced as he clambered onto Mervamon's head. "You're like grown-up versions of some of our Generals or something."
"I wouldn't quite say that, Cutemon," Mervamon chuckled. "But still, we do owe you a great deal of debt – every one of you. More than likely we would have been wandering around in that forest where we first met you still by this stage if we had not chanced upon you and you had not allowed us to join your party. Yet I still noticed after two days of running that we have yet to encounter any sign of a civilisation."
"These are sparsely populated lands," replied Aragorn. "There isn't much available in the way of growing food. But we should be thankful that there is no civilisation on our path, for our path is in the wake of the Uruk-Hai and if they were to encounter a village before we, then it would more than likely be pillaged and destroyed by the time we reached it."
"True," Mervamon nodded. "Then I guess I'll just keep following you. I hardly have much alternative even if I were considering abandoning your quest to rescue your friends."
Aragorn ran along faster, down a slope that led towards more open land. He was beginning to wonder whether it would have been better for him to go with Frodo – they still had not mentioned the story of the One Ring in front of Mervamon or Cutemon during their run. They no longer believed that these two would sell them out to someone like Sauron, but they were all in silent agreement that the less people who knew about Frodo and his quest, the better. No matter how good their intentions were.
He hoped that Frodo would be making good progress, but he could not help but worry. Even though Frodo had made his choice, a small portion of him still felt as though he was abandoning the Hobbit. At least Sam went with him, and he knew that Sam would always have Frodo's back, but the personal responsibility was still there.
Nevertheless, Frodo was not the one in immediate danger, at least not as far as he knew. Merry and Pippin were, and as they continued with their charge across the open expanses of Middle Earth, Aragorn was becoming increasingly agitated, his eyes glued to the ground and the tracks that stretched away in front of them. While the Uruk-Hai tracks were easy to see, he had yet to see any sign whatsoever that Merry and Pippin were still alive. No footprints or body marks, but thankfully no bones either. Orcs in general would eat just about any meat, so he knew they were in danger of being killed and eaten, but so far he had seen nothing that told him whether they were alive or dead.
He hoped that they were not running on a wild goose chase. He hoped that with all his heart.
Yet he was consciously aware of how far ahead the Uruk-Hai had gotten. His group were fast runners, but the Uruks were very fast themselves, and seemed to have even more endurance than his group, with the possible exception of Legolas and Mervamon, neither of which had shown much sign of exertion yet. In addition, though it had only been a couple of hours, if that, from when Merry and Pippin were taken to when the chase after them began, Boromir had slowed them down somewhat thanks to his previous wounds, allowing the Uruks to get a much bigger lead on them.
The carrying of Boromir by Mervamon had helped, and now that Boromir was feeling better and running properly they were doing much better and Aragorn was convinced that they were gaining ground, little by little, on the Uruks. They might have even caught up with them by now if it weren't for the other main problem.
Night.
They had already run straight through two nights with few more pauses than in the day, never stopping and never resting, but the at night it was much harder for even keen eyed Aragorn to follow the trail of the Uruk-Hai. Twice during last night alone now that they had entered an area with much less shrubbery for the Uruks to slash, Aragorn had lost the trail twice in the darkness and had had to double back before he found it again and corrected their course. And of course, running at night in itself was more dangerous anyway, for there were still many precipices and boulders that could be fallen off or crashed into in this land.
But they had pushed on, and now, into their second day, they were still going, determined to make up for the ground they lost the previous night.
Aragorn led the group cross-country towards a small ravine in the distance that the trail of the Uruks led them towards, his eyes glued to the ground and he ran, the others falling silent behind him and allowing him to concentrate. After he led them into the ravine, with muddy ground so pockmarked with footprints that a blind man could probably follow them, he finally drew to a halt about half-way through it and knelt down, Mervamon having to spin to the side to stop from crashing into him.
"By the Code Crown, you're as quick to stop as Mekanorimon with a loose wire," she murmured. "What is it?"
"Did you find something, kyu?"
"I believe I have," Aragorn replied softly, reaching down gently and pulling something from the muddy-ground, barely visible against the grass. Legolas drew to a halt beside them as they looked down upon the small object that Aragorn held on his fingers.
"It's a brooch, kyu," Cutemon bounced up and down. "Like on those cloaks that you where, kyu?"
"This belonged to a Hobbit," Aragorn agreed. "And the Leaves of Lórien do not merely fall from their perches. This was a deliberate act."
"You think one of the Hobbit planted it there?" Legolas asked as Boromir and Gimli ran up behind them, the Dwarf cursing under his breath as his foot hit a rock and he almost went stumbling, and would have if Boromir hadn't grabbed him to steady him and pull him back up.
"Either that or it was ripped off and discarded by their captors," Aragorn replied, examining the footprints. "But I see no reason why they would do such a thing. We may not be on a hopeless errand after all."
"Do you think we have a chance of catching them?" Mervamon asked.
"I believe we have gained ground," Aragorn replied. "They were here yesterday, late-afternoon. We are catching up. Let's go, so we can thank whichever Hobbit was clever enough to leave us this clue."
And he was off and running again, just as Gimli caught up with them, Mervamon and Legolas running along behind him.
"Oh of course," Gimli muttered under his breath, doggedly pursuing them. "Don't allow the Dwarf a moment to catch his breath even if you get to stop and stand around for half a minute. I'm not designed for this!"
"Come on, Gimli," Mervamon said, having overheard his comment. "I could give you a ride on my back, if you like. Or maybe my shoulders."
"I beg to differ, Miss Mervamon!" Gimli cried indignantly. "Nobody carries a Dwarf."
"I thought that was 'tosses' Master Gimli," Aragorn called over his shoulder.
"Nobody lifts a Dwarf's feet off the ground in any way!" Gimli declared indignantly. "Unless they have four legs or feathers."
Mervamon snorted and dropped back to run beside Gimli and help him along in any way she could, while Boromir pulled ahead to try and catch up with Legolas and Aragorn.
A short time later, running and weaving their way through various rocks, following the course the that Uruks had taken exactly, and Aragorn pulled to a stop ahead of them, standing on the edge of a steep hillside and staring out across the horizon. This time he allowed all of them to pull to a stop beside him, and Gimli sagged a little, leaning on one of his axes for support like a walking stick as he gasped for breath.
"Why are we stopping?" Mervamon asked, while Aragorn gave Legolas a silent nod and the Elf ran on ahead, further up the side of the hill.
"We've long passed over the border into country of Rohan," Aragorn replied. "This is the East Emnet. We are now in the lands of King Théoden, the Horsemaster, who commands the Rohirrim – Rohan's Riders."
"Fear not, Aragorn," Boromir clapped him on the back. "Théoden and I have met on many an occasion. His men know me. If we should run into them then perhaps we can gain their help."
"It is not for me that I fear for," Aragorn said, glancing over at Mervamon and Cutemon. "In my experience the Men of Rohan have good hearts, but they can be quite rash and quick to act. I fear that if they catch sight of you Mervamon, they might assume you are not of the light."
"You think they might attack us?" Mervamon asked with narrowed eyes.
"It is a possibility," Aragorn nodded. "I would recommend that you stick close so that we can vouch for you. We may not come across any patrols at all, but we would not wish for any unnecessary misunderstandings to occur."
Cutemon huddled a little closer to Mervamon as she gave Aragorn a nod.
"And there is something else," Aragorn said, frowning as he looked back across the horizon. "At first I thought that those Uruks that attacked us were acting under their own authority, but now I am not so sure. I have never seen Uruks of their like before, and now I believe that they may be acting under another, more sinister evil that directed them to attack us deliberately."
"They did not count on our new ally, whatever the case," Gimli huffed, nodding towards Mervamon, who smirked.
"Indeed not" chuckled Boromir.
"Legolas! What can you discern?" Aragorn asked, calling to the Elf that he had directed further ahead. Legolas was standing on the edge of a precipice and focusing his incredible vision down on the plains below.
"I see them," he called, staring at a cloud of dust that was rising into the air in the distance. "Several leagues ahead. They have changed trajectory and are heading…" he paused, eyes widening, and he added:-
"They're taking the Hobbits to Isengard."
Aragorn grimaced. "I thought so."
"Then this is Saruman's doing," Boromir growled. "It was he who sent the Uruk-Hai after us."
"So it would seem," Aragorn nodded.
"Isn't that the Wizard that you mentioned before?" Mervamon asked. "The one that used to be a good person but has recently turned traitor?"
"That's him," Gimli snarled. "Filthy turncoat."
"Why would he send a patrol specifically out after your little party?" Mervamon asked, with a frown.
"Maybe he was trying to get rid of the rightful king, kyu," suggested Cutemon, which was actually a fair sounding suggestion.
"Though that does not explain why his army took your smaller friends," Mervamon pointed out. "They must have known they were not the rightful Kings of hum… Men… I am not going to be able to calling your entire race Men when there are women in it. From now on I will just call you humans."
"As you wish," Boromir nodded.
"The mind of the White Wizard has been twisted," Aragorn stated. "Who can say what his true motives are now? In any case, we must waste no more time. We cannot let Merry and Pippin meet with Saruman – it will only end badly for them both. Let's move." And he quickly began to scramble down the steep hill and in the direction of the distant dust cloud, Legolas jumping from his perch nearby to land beside him and continue running.
As Boromir and Gimli followed on, Mervamon frowned a little at their retreating backs. She had the distinct feeling that there was something that they were not telling her. She thought her instincts on this kind of issue relatively fine-tuned, and she was almost sure they knew more about why they had been targeted than they were saying.
"What's wrong, Mervamon? Aren't we going, kyu?" Cutemon asked.
"Yes," Mervamon shook herself. "Of course." And she hurried down the slope after them, resolving not to pry any further into this. They had been kind enough to let her stay and run with them despite their misgivings of her trustworthiness so she could probably give them the benefit of the doubt. She didn't even know if she would be staying in the company of this lot for much longer either so if they were hiding something she would wait for them to be the ones to impart it.
For now, she would continue what she had been mostly doing for the last two days and run – the six of them heading deeper out into the country of Rohan and striving to put on every mile they could before night fell once more.
Some distance behind Mervamon and Cutemon, the two Digimon running further and further away from him with every passing minute, was Ballistamon. The robotic Digimon had even begun to have his own endless reserves of patience tested during the course of the last night as he had continued to wander around in the vast maze of the Emyn Muil, unaware that that was what it was called or that it even had a name, and really unaware of anything at this point, least of how to get out of the place.
He had been almost non-stop walking around with very little aim ever since he had gotten into this place, trying and failing to find a way out onto more open ground. He had a good sense of direction, so he was able to more or less tell if he was going the same way as he had been five minutes ago, even though making out landmarks in this place was next to impossible since everything was so enclosed. But it was still a tough challenge to keep him going in the same direction all the time because the paths kept seeming to try and twist him away from his course.
Nevertheless he eventually picked a direction – west – and focused on it, trying his best to just head that way. If he kept heading west then, eventually, no matter how many times he veered off course, he should eventually come out of this place, should he not? As long as the path didn't keep on doubling back to the east, which unfortunately it did on many occasions.
Ballistamon wondered what had become of the three Monitamon. They were dunces but they were capable of looking after themselves… sometimes. It depending on how much trouble they went looking for – if they looked for it they were guaranteed to find it but if they were not looking for trouble then it was likely to stay away from them for ten minutes at a time before they ran into a problem.
That didn't sound very encouraging to Ballistamon either but there was literally nothing he could do about their disappearance now. He would just have to assume they were still following those strangers from before that he had helped to save. He needed to focus on himself, and getting out of here. And then maybe when he found someone else who actually knew more about where they were going they could actually try a proper search for the Monitamon later on.
That didn't stop him from feeling guilty about leaving them behind though. Was this turning his back on them? He felt like it was, abandoning them in a strange landscape like this even if there was nothing he could do about it. Ballistamon's good soul told him to go back and look for them, but his head told him that doing that alone would probably have him wandering fruitlessly around this place for years. If he couldn't find the way out, how could he find three Monitamon in this maze?
They would be fine – and if they were with those strangers then they would have some protection and some guidance, which was more than he could say for himself.
He would head on and try to find the others. Someone like Sparrowmon or MailBirdramon could comb this entire place in two hours anyway when the time came. Finding them was his top priority.
Currently he was slamming his way up the side of a steep hillside, having finally gotten fed up of wandering around in the valleys, he had found the shallowest slope he could, which was not very shallow at all and started to make his way up. There were no decent hand or footholds for him to use as he clambered his way up, so he made the holds for himself, slamming each armoured hand and square foot into the side of the slope and punching a hole in the rock the exact same size and shape of the limb in question, practically locking him in place until he withdrew the limb himself and punched another hole to pull himself up further.
He looked, for all the world, like a giant beetle scaling the side of a wall as he climbed the slope.
"Should probably have done this earlier," he muttered to himself as he punched another handhold and pulled himself up further a few inches, his legs joints, or lack thereof, making it hard from him to go much further than a quarter of a metre upwards with each step, but nonetheless powering on.
It took him a while but he finally managed to pull himself onto the top of the ledge and looked out. This was a much better view of the surrounding area and there… not far away in front of him… hallelujah. The stone maze finally ended and gave way to what seemed to be a forest of some kind. And if Ballistamon had to be lost then he would rather be surrounded by trees than boulders.
"Well that took far too long for my liking, but I finally found my way out," he said to himself, stepping forwards towards the trees. "About time. Maybe I can start looking for the others properly now."
About an hour or so later and he was finally out and amongst the trees. Navigating here was obviously much easier because stepping around a tree was a much simpler task that stepping around a giant rocky wall. Ballistamon continued plodding along, his large, flat feet thunking against the leaf-litter with each step and his head rotating around on the spot like a security camera, his yellow eyes scanning the treeline for any sign of activity.
He wasn't entirely sure what he was supposed to do now that he was out grateful as he was to be. How was he meant to go about finding any of the others? He realised in short order that he really couldn't do much but wander around aimlessly and hope that he happened across something. And walking round in circles was unlikely to do him much good so… he decided to just keep walking west. That seemed about the best idea that he could come up with at this stage.
So, he walked on, with no destination in mind. Maybe if he chanced upon any random stranger they would be able to help him with his problem. Perhaps they would have seen something that Ballistamon could find useful.
Shortly afterwards though, he came across his first major obstacle when he reached the edge of a ravine – a massive ravine that fell away before him in a giant chasm, at the bottom of which was a large, fast-flowing river and next to no bank on either side. The ravine wall on the other side was just as high and Ballistamon could tell just from a look that there was no way he was getting over that. He couldn't fly or jump long distances and climbing up and down this would be next to impossible for him.
Ballistamon wasn't that great with water. He could swim, which was surprising for a Digimon of his bulk but since he was hollow inside he was actually not quite as heavy as he looked. But just because he could swim it did not mean that he was very good at it, and never mind the fact he would probably rust. It was ironic that he'd been created by a pirate Digimon that sailed out on the oceans really.
But he had decided to continue west and to do that he would need to cross the river. There had to be a crossing point here somewhere surely.
He turned southwards… and was immediately enthralled.
"Oh my stars!" he cried, clapping his hands before him like an excited child and interlocking his fingers. "Now that is ART! That is amazing! Oh I want to meet whoever it was that sculpted those!"
Ballistamon had a real appreciation for beautiful things, like paintings and statues and all kinds of forms of art. Perhaps it had something to do with being considered a work of art by the person that had built him, but Ballistamon was able to see beauty and meaning in strange art forms that most other people would find rather bemusing. It was like it spoke to him on some level that most people who were not artists would not understand.
But it did not take an eye for beauty to marvel at the wonder and splendour of the Argonath, the two statues of Gondor's ancient Kings, Elendil and Anárion, which towered on either side of the ravine with their hands outstretched. Though Ballistamon didn't know it, Mervamon and Cutemon had been here but two days earlier, albeit on the other side of the river, while the Fellowship had progressed between the massive statues followed by the two Digimon at the top of the ravine. Ballistamon was standing right across from where his two fellow Xros Heart members had been and he had no idea.
Still, Ballistamon was momentarily distracted from thoughts of his friends as he hurried closer towards the statues; instead of walking he was jetting along on his feet on small wheels that had extended out of the bottom – a faster mode of transportation that hadn't really been plausible in the rockiness of Emyn Muil but worked fine here. He rolled up as close as he could to the statues and marvelled at them, utterly captivated, not caring at all about the plants and lichen growing on various parts of it, or the occasional bird's nest perched on it.
"Wow, I wonder what Shoutmon would say if he could see this," he muttered, practically bouncing up and down on the spot in excitement. "Maybe we should try and get a giant statue of him done for the next anniversary… Assuming that we reach the next anniversary."
The thought sobered him up a little. He now knew that this was not the Digital World, for the statues were quite clearly of humans, and there were no humans in the Digital World anymore and definitely no statues of them. Shoutmon had considered making one of the generals but decided against it unless they met them again and could use them as model subjects to make sure they got it right.
He sighed a little and tore his eyes away from the statues, looking out across the large lake on the other side – which looked to be several miles long and extremely wide as well. There had to be a crossing point to this river somewhere, but maybe he should try heading down there first. If it came to swimming then he would swim, for the lake looked a lot calmer than the river down below that fed into it, even if was also much wider.
So Ballistamon began trudging down and around, descending through the woods and down the hill towards the shore of the lake, no better plan in mind right at this moment. He continued using steps instead of rolling on the slope – he had long since learned the rolling down a hill was a bad idea, because it was not easy for him to stop.
He had not been going long, when he started to hear what sounded like voices. He stopped, listening, and he would have cocked his head if that would have been physically possible for him.
Yes, it was definitely voices. Some quite guttural voices coming from amongst the trees nearby. Ballistamon couldn't make out what they were saying, but he immediately headed towards the voices. If there was a slight chance he could get help from these strangers then he should at least try.
As he got closer, he began to hear what was being said. There was a lot of muttering, but there were a couple of voices that were a little closer and more distinct than the others.
"…Don't like it out here by day," one of them moaned. "I don't like the way that the Sun stares down at me. I feel like it's watching me. Not like the Moon and the darkness that comes with it."
"Will you shut up?" another voice snarled. "Just deal with the fact that we're out here, okay? How are we supposed to be an effective patrol unit if we only do stuff at night? Everyone knows that we don't like the Sun nowadays, so they might try sneaking across during the day to slip past us."
"How do they even know that we're here then?"
"Well naturally they will assume that there might be danger and come at the time they think is best, idiot!"
"Alright, but I still don't like the Sun."
"You're in a forest! The Sun i'nt looking directly at you – you're in the shade. Besides, you're not a Troll. S'not like you're going to turn to stone if the sunlight hits you is it?"
"I know, I know. But you know there are trolls now that don't turn to stone in the Sun. The master's newest creations, I think. He calls 'em the Olog-Hai."
"Yeah, I've heard of them. Don't care for the name either. Sounds too similar to those Uruk-Hai. Bah! Can't stand those guys muscling in and thinking that they're better than us. First chance I get I'm going to stick my blade into one of them and make it look like an accident. That'll feel good, won't it?"
Ballistamon had stopped walking towards the voices after hearing those last few sentences. He was pretty sure that he didn't want to get mixed up with a group of people that said things like that. Maybe it would be better to just skirt past them and continue with his objective.
But as he made to do that, there was a rustling behind him and he turned around to see a grimy, scabby and gnarled looking humanoid create with pointed ears and mis-matched fangs in its mouth and carrying several sticks under one arm while the other held a wood-cutting axe. The creature froze as it saw Ballistamon and then screeched when Ballistamon turned to face him.
"Alarm!" he snarled, dropping the pile of wood and drawing a rusty looking knife from his belt. "There's something here! Some kind of… I dunno what it is!"
There was more rustling immediately from behind Ballistamon and he turned back to see several more of the creatures run out of the bushes with long, viciously spiked swords and other blades Ballistamon couldn't come up with a name for grasped in their long-fingered hands, snarling as they quickly surrounded the Digimon, brandishing their arms warningly.
"What have we here?" one of the creatures snarled, stepping forwards and jabbing a curved sword warningly in Ballistamon's direction. "Some kind of strange animal covered in metal?"
"Doesn't look natural," another growled. "Maybe we should try and peel back that armour and see what it looks like underneath."
"I mostly have gears and pistons inside me," Ballistamon replied, making them all jump. "Nothing special really."
"So it talks, huh?" one of them sneered, showing its sharp teeth. "Should we take it prisoner?"
"Look, I don't have any quarrel with you," Ballistamon replied, holding up his red hands. "I just want to get on and search for my friends. I'll leave you alone, for I have no business here."
"You begging for mercy already?" the largest of the creatures laughed. "Orcs don't show mercy, whatever you are. You're trespassing on our land and we can't have that now, can we?"
"Can we just…" Ballistamon started, for he would prefer to talk things out rationally than fight if he had the option. But he never got to finish the sentence.
"Get him!" snarled one of the orcs and two of them immediately sprang for him, swinging their sharp blades at his face. Ballistamon crossed his arms in front on him and blocked the blades with metallic clangs and shoved them backwards, sending the orcs stumbling. Another orc jumped on him from behind, landing on his back and wrapping his arm around his shoulder and slamming his sword down on Ballistamon's horn.
The blade pinged off the horn ineffectually, but Ballistamon was suddenly riled by this strike. "Do not touch the horn," he grated and spun around with a speed his cube-like body didn't look capable of doing. The orc cried and grabbed the horn in one hand as he was shaken loose and flung upwards, clinging to the horn for dear life. Ballistamon growled and furiously wrenched himself to one side, slamming the orc into a tree and sending it crashing into the ground with several broken bones.
"Get it! Kill it!" the other orcs piled forwards with cries of rage, teeth bared as they raised their weapons to strike. Ballistamon turned around and backhanded an orc coming in from the side with one blow, then seized another by the face in his other hand and swung him like a bat into a couple of others. The largest orc ducked in and swung for him with his sword but Ballistamon seized the blade in one metal hand, wrenched it and snapped it in half, tossing the half in his hand to the side nonchalantly. The orc backpedalled in alarm, but Ballistamon moved forwards with surprising speed and punched him full in the chest, sending him flying backwards like he'd been fired from a giant slingshot.
Several of the other orcs were now more wary, fanning out a little and trying to encircle, Ballistamon in an attempt to hem him in as they came at him from all angles. But it was an exercise in futility. Ballistamon lowered his head, aiming his horn at a group of three of them before crying, "HORN BREAKER!" and motoring forwards on the jets of his feet. None of the orcs saw such a turn of speed coming and Ballistamon swung his horn to the side and slammed all three to one side to crash in a heap into another tree.
With that motion, Ballistamon had also broken out of the circle and he turned around to see the other orcs gathering behind him, charging forwards with blades raised. One of them threw a spear at him, but Ballistamon lifted a hand and blocked the spear with the palm of his hand, where it clattered uselessly to the floor. The orcs hesitated as it so casually blocked their attacks. None of their weapons had even left a chink in its armour so far.
But the clincher came several moments later, when Ballistamon threw his arms out to his side and aimed his flat torso at the bunched up orcs and yelled, "HEAVY SPEAKER!" The concussive soundwaves that blasted out from the section on his chest could be heard throughout the forest as they burst out and crashed into the orcs like a physical wall, tossing them through the air and breaking bones with the force of the attack. The entire orc patrol was swept up in it, crashing to the ground or into other trees. And Ballistamon had not even used full power with the blast.
Ballistamon was not violent by nature though. He could easily run over now and finish most of those orcs off, but he didn't. As far as he was concerned they were just bandits and killing them when they were defenceless would border on murder. So he stood there and watched them go as they scrambled to their feet and scrambled away as fast as their injuries would allow them.
Four of them did not get up. They would never get up again.
Ballistamon sighed, wondering if he'd gone a little overboard, but decide against it. They had clearly been bad people, whatever they were – orcs they called themselves. So they had needed someone to teach them a lesson. And Ballistamon always got crabby when someone touched his horn without permission.
Deciding he was done here, he just turned around and continued the same way that he had been going in before the attack, knowing that if there were any more of those bandits in these woods, they had probably heard his Heavy Speaker attack and might come trying to investigate. He would prefer to be out of here before that happened.
He quickly headed down to the surface of the lake, staring out across its calm waters. He could tell now that there was a large waterfall at the other end of the lake, and that made him dubious about swimming – he would prefer to try and find an alternative way across before he attempted something like with a waterfall so close
And then, eventually, he came across something that surprised him – there was a small wooden boat grounded on the earthen shoreline, half in and half out of the water. At first he had not noticed it, because it was hidden behind a pile of boulders and he almost walked past the thing before he saw it.
He looked around for any sign of an owner, but there was nothing to indicate there was one. The boat was not even tied to the shoreline – it was like it had just been abandoned. He did not know it, but this was the same boat that Frodo and Sam had used to cross the lake and continue on the journey themselves.
"Hello?" he called. "Anybody?"
There was no answer. But Ballistamon did notice two identical boats on the other side of the lake, in the far distance, which made up his mind. He would use the boat – he was not exactly stealing it and if someone on his side needed it then they could get someone on the other side to return it to them. So he gingerly clambered into the small boat, having to mostly tip it over to allow him to lift his legs into it before he carefully used his feet to tip it back upright. Then he reached over the side and pushed it away from the shore with his hand and made his way across the lake, using one wide hand like an efficient oar, sitting precariously in the middle of the boat and thankful that it could support his weight.
It was an Elvish boat though. So it supported him easily.
There was still no sign of any people when he reached the other side, beaching the boat and unsteadily clambering out of it again and onto the bank. He could see footprints in some places that looked slightly recent, but he was no tracker. If he were, he might have been able to tell that some of the prints were Mervamon's, but he wasn't, so he couldn't.
Obstacle out the way, Ballistamon continued to strike out west, no other real objective in mind than to find his way, and unaware that he was heading in a direction many degrees lower on the compass that two of his companions had taken, heading straight through the Sarn Gebir hills on his jet-feet and towards the southern part of the East Emnet.
Towards Rohan.
Ballistamon was not the only one to be confronted by obstacles though; there was another group of Digimon that had encountered a similar obstruction to the one that had had just crossed.
The Gaossmon had certainly had a rather uneventful couple of days ever since they had gotten into Middle Earth. For the most part anyway. They had spent most of their waking hours in the same way – running around madly on their two legs like a large group of dogs that were chasing after a rabbit or something.
They never seemed to tire, no matter how frenetic they became and dashed about, kicking up dust beneath their feet as they swarmed like a flock of starlings whooshing around in various patterns and tumbling over one another. Every time one of them fell or got knocked over they would just roll back onto their feet. From above, their small blue bodies must have made them look like a shoal of fish hurtling over the land.
But the way they swarming together was the only similarity they shared with fish. When it came to the fish's medium – water – Gaossmon were… to put it in perhaps the nicest possible way, worse than useless.
Gaossmon were built for running, and they did it very well. But when it came to swimming, they didn't have a hope. None of them knew how, and even if they had known the basic idea behind how to swim, they were physically incapable of doing it. Which was unfortunate for them considering where they were heading.
Although in reality, they weren't really heading anywhere. Another thing that none of them really had was a sense of direction – they just flowed with the swarm and all seemed to follow one another rather than try and lead. All sixty-eight of them just ran and ran and ran with no particular thought in mind other than they had to find where they were, and where the others were. Which was proving difficult because in the last two days they gone in various circles several times now and, most often, not even realised it.
There were only two reasons that they stopped running. The first was to sleep. When night fell they would all flop onto their stomachs and huddle together like penguins, snoozing the night away until the dawn broke. And when it did, they would all stand up, yawn, stretch their legs and then immediately start running again. Only they would each pick their own direction and scatter around in a wide circle, and it usually took half an hour of running around all over the place before all of them were moving with one another.
The only other time that they stopped was about twice a day where one of them would decide to do a headcount and call a halt, hopping onto the nearest rock and making sure that all sixty-eight of them were still there, which they were, though it was difficult to keep all the restless Gaossmon still enough to count them properly. When one counter managed to reached eighty-two due to counting many of them more than once, he immediately started yelling about spies in their midst, and another counter had to step up and recheck the number, confirming that there really were sixty-eight of them there.
And so they ran on with wide zig-zags and curves and taking on the general direction of south, but meandering all over the place like a river.
And speaking of a river…
"WATER!" yelled one of the Gaossmon at the front of the back, trying to screech to a halt as quickly as he could, clawed toes furrowing the ground and if it had any arms whatsoever, they would have been flailing wildly at this point. But its attempt to stop was not hindered by the other Gaossmon, who all ploughed into the front-runner and so on and so on in massive pile-up of flying bodies and thrashing limbs, sliding forwards in a massive jumble of tails and yelling.
The front-runner was pushed into the shallow water of the river and by the pile-up as it came to a stop mostly on the bank, a couple of the other Gaossmon also had a portion of their body dipped into the cold water.
The Gaossmon immediately began to freak out, yelling and thrashing and wailing, spraying water everywhere and swallowing more of it and he coughed, retched and screamed, "HELP! HELP! I'M DROWNING! I'M DROWNING!"
To a casual observer, this sight might have looked utterly ridiculous, because the struggling Gaossmon was only in about ten centimetres of water on the edge of the river. But the other Gaossmon knew better and immediately scrambled upwards, running around at the edge of the water like panicking chickens and bumping into one another.
"Think like ChibiKamemon! Think like ChibiKamemon!" one of the barked, bouncing up and down on the side of the river like an overexcited Chihuahua.
"I can't!" spluttered the one in the water, kicking and flailing and rolling over. This was not just a panic attack – he genuinely was drowning in water that shallow. It was like the water just pulled him down and entered his mouth, although the water was really doing no such thing. Gaossmon were just that bad with water.
"Grab him!" cried another Gaossmon, standing up and reaching out as far as he could while staying on dry land itself trying to grab his fellow Digimon in his jaws but just unable to reach. Quickly, the barking one seized the would-be rescuer by the tail and pushed him out into the water, keeping hold of the tail in his own jaws while he stayed on dry land himself. The rescuer immediately lost his balanced and almost began flailing around himself, but he managed to latch onto his drowning cohorts own tail with his own mouth.
"Pulllll!" yelled several other Gaossmon forming a line and grabbing each other's tails to motor backwards and heave the two others to safety, leaving them slumped and dripping wet on the bank, gasping for breath.
"Oh, that was too close for comfort," the one that had been drowning gasped. "That was… I saw my entire life flash before my eyes there."
"Ugh, I hate water," agreed the rescuer.
"We all hate water," another Gaossmon nodded. "It's like it's out to get us all the time. I wish that we could swim like ChibiKamemon can."
"Yeah, well we can't," grunted another, looking out across the river, which wasn't particularly wide. In fact it was more of a tributary than a river, but they were all staring at it as if it was the most horrifying thing in the world.
"Water is evil," another Gaossmon shuddered. "I do not understand how ChibiKamemon can like it so much."
"I tell you this, I am sure as heck glad that we didn't have to fight against Splashmon," another said. "A being made of water? Why was he not the leader of the Bagra Army instead of Bagramon? We should have been fighting the Splash Army or something."
"If we'd fought a Splash Army we never would have stood a chance," shuddered another Gaossmon. "Don't even go there."
"So… what are we supposed to do now?" asked the one that had grabbed the tail of the rescuer. "Do we go back? We can't cross that!? It's got to be half a metre deep."
"Maybe deeper!" another suggested, and they all gasped in horror.
"We must turn back. We can't cross this monstrosity," another wailed.
But, surprisingly, the one that nearly drowned said, "No," and clambered back to his feet. The Gaossmon didn't have a leader, not really, but this was the one that had been mostly at the front of the group during their headlong running, so they turned to listen to him. "We can't go back now – we never found anything. What if they're on the other side of this thing? If they are, then we won't find them if we wimp out and just go back. We should at least try."
"Are you insane?" another Gaossmon gasped, pointing at the shallow river maybe three metres wide. "Are you even looking at this thing? It's got 'death' written all over it."
"Guys, guys," the near-drowned one said. "What are we? Are we baby Botamon cowering in a hole or are we Gaossmon, warriors of Blue Flare and the Xros Heart United Army. We've got to face our fears somehow and we can cross this river. I've seen wider rivers than this. Deeper ones too I bet. And faster. We've got to find a way to cross it."
"But how," another protested. "If we step into that thing then we'll all die. I saw one of us pass out in a small puddle once."
"I swear the thing snuck up on me," the particular Gaossmon being referred to shuddered, remembering vividly that truly malicious puddle.
"I know that we can't swim across," the emboldened Gaossmon said. "But there must be somewhere that we can cross. Maybe there's a bridge somewhere that we can use. Let's at least try and find something, shall we? We can't just turn back straight away. Let's head this way." And he immediately started running, his feet kicking up the dirt of the bank as he took off west, following the course of the river. The other Gaossmon hesitated for a second, but a few moments later they were all following, caught up in the running and swarming across the bank, giving the river as wide a berth as they could as if it would rise up and attempt to sweep them into it at any second.
They hurtled across the bank for about ten minutes or so, actually going in a relatively straight line now that they had a landmark to follow, tails swinging wildly behind them in slight agitation as they ran and the sound of their feet hitting the ground akin to several large jackhammers tunnelling into a street.
But then the Gaossmon in the lead saw something that he found to be interesting and slowed himself down, the other Gaossmon slowing with him instead of piling into him as they'd done when he'd tried to stop suddenly. The lead Gaossmon nodded and turned around, pointing with his tail. "That's it," he said. "That's our way across."
"It's a small tree," one of the others observed. "And it's still upright. Just."
"Not for long it isn't," the lead Gaossmon chuckled. "You see those stones out on the other side of the water from it. We can use them too. Let's go."
The tree that they had stumbled across was a small silver birch tree that had long since died of who knew what, standing precariously at the side of the river. The Gaossmon lead the rest of his group towards it and increasing his speed as he made straight for it and threw himself at it, slamming the top of his head into it with an audible creaking sound. Several of the other Gaossmon moved in around him and took their turn, slamming head after head after head into the trunk of the dead tree in rapid succession, like a boxer to a punching bag.
The tree couldn't stand the pressure of the blows and many its old roots were yanked up and out of the weakened ground, causing the tree to topple over and crash into the river, held in place by what was left of its roots in the bank, while the other end of the trunk was resting against a rock sticking out of the stream.
"Perfect," the lead Gaossmon muttered and then gulped, looking at the water itself with trepidation. That was the easy part over and done with. Now they had to do the hard bit. "Erm… who wants to go first?"
Several of the Gaossmon backed away nervously, nobody wanting to be the first to dare cross. These Gaossmon had faced down the massive forces of the Bagra Army and gone toe to toe with some of their largest forces and yet they were absolutely terrified out of their minds at the thought of crossing this river.
"Okay," the lead Gaossmon muttered. "Guess it's… up to me then."
"Careful," another one muttered.
"Of course," the lead one muttered, leaping onto the fallen tree and finding its balance on the slender trunk, eyes narrowing as he focused across to the other side of the narrow river. Then, without further ado, he charged. There was no careful balancing act here – Gaossmon never walked anywhere. Either they ran, or they didn't move at all, and when they ran they were at their best.
The Gaossmon blazed across the trunk like it was balance beam and sprang off the other end onto the nearest rock, bounding off it to land on another and do a series of running hops from boulder to boulder the rest of the way to the other side of the stream, before he bounded onto the opposite bank and bounced up and down, whooping and swiping the air with his tail since he had not arms to punch it with.
"Oh by the Code Crown, that made me feel alive!" he cried. "Come on, you lot. Nothing to it."
Emboldened by their comrade's success, the others ran forwards. There was some slight squabbling and butting heads with one another at the base of the tree as several of them tried to hop onto the tree at the same time, but eventually they managed to sort themselves out into a line, one after the other jumping onto the log and running across it and the stepping stones of the other side, hop hop hop, to land on the other bank themselves. Despite their nervousness not one of them tried to go slowly. It just wasn't in their nature at all.
There were a couple of scares at some points, like when one slipped on one of the boulders and almost overbalanced, but quickly threw himself to the side to land on another boulder instead. And there was also an instance where one of them slipped off the tree and fell into the water, but managed to seize the tree with its jaws to keep from sinking or being swept away. The next Gaossmon along quickly ran over and managed to grab him by the tail and haul him back onto the log, breathing hard, but otherwise okay. And then the two of them dashed to the other side like everyone else.
"Alright," they barked, bouncing up and down like sixty-eight overexcited Chihuahuas instead of just one. "We did it! We did it! We did it!"
"Okay then!" one of them suggested. "Let's keep going!" And they all turned together and shot away, determined to put as much distance between them and the river as they could. But though they didn't know, they had just passed over the northern boundary of the country of Rohan, which the River Limlight that just crossed marked, and they were running south deeper into the country.
While the Gaossmon had managed to get one of the two obstacles that Ballistamon had had to face, another Digimon was about to face one of his own – the obstacle of running into enemy forces.
In comparison to some of the other Digimon, Golemon had had a pretty uneventful last couple of days. The rock-skinned Digimon had pretty much started on his solo journey from finding himself at the base of a mountain range by walking south with long, plodding strides. And he had done pretty much nothing else since then, not even stopping at night to sleep and just plodding along the side of the mountains, waiting until he stumbled on something of interest.
Golemon was like Cyberdramon in that he rarely said anything, but unlike Cyberdramon this was because… well… because of his fairly limited intelligence. Nobody said things like that to his face obviously, and he was welcomed as a valuable asset to the team by everyone, but it was hard to deny that Golemon was not exactly a very sharp knife.
His skin was entirely made out of stone, and therefore so was his head. Nobody was sure whether his brains were possibly made of rock too and nobody was going to be insensitive enough to ask. But when it came to battle situations, Golemon mostly just stood there silently until he was given an order, which he would then go and carry out to the best of his ability.
Right now, he had nobody to tell him what to do, so he followed his own simple mission of seeing what he could find, and he never wavered from his path in doing so. He was walking down the side of the Misty Mountain range, always heading South, and just staring ahead to see what he could see. One advantage of being slow in both body and wit was that it granted him patience, enough so that two days after he started he was still treading along amiably.
But that was not going to remain the case for much longer, for now, Golemon could sense something. He was quite sensitive to vibrations in the ground, and he could feel vibrations coming from up ahead through the ground – vibrations that felt like many tramping feet. So he headed towards them, wondering what he might find to himself, though his expression remained relatively unchanged.
He did hope that it was some good news. Slow as his mind was, his heart and soul were as strong as anyone else in Xros Heart, and he was getting anxious about what could have happened to both himself and the rest of this team-mates. When Golemon had first joined Blue Flare, it had been relatively early into Kiriha's exploits as a General. Kiriha had asked him and several other Golemon if they had wanted to strike back at a group of the Bagra Army that had been terrorising their area. It had taken them a while for them to understand what was being asked of them, but eventually they had agreed, eager to find a chance of paying the Bagra Army back for trying to muscle them off their turf.
They hadn't exactly had the best time of it under Kiriha's leadership to begin with. Kiriha had only respected strength at first, and had basically used the Golemon as added muscle, occasionally calling them out to pound something or DigiXros with another of his team, usually MailBirdramon, to allow them to pummel something, and Kiriha had generally cared quite little for their well-being, with MailBirdramon even slamming them out of the way when they were no longer needed if the battle was not over. It wasn't until much later that Kiriha had started to care more for them, during the fight against Dorbickmon when he had needed all the assets he could get, and started looking after them better.
But that had not been enough and all of the Golemon in Kiriha's overpowered army had perished except for him. He was the lucky survivor. Of course the other Golemon had been revived by the Code Crown later, but they had all gone their own way after that. Golemon was the only one who had decided to stick around, because he had been present when Deckerdramon had revealed Kiriha's past, and how his father had been very harsh on him about getting stronger, only to pass away shortly afterwards and leave the impression in Kiriha's mind that only the strong were worthy, and how it had later been revealed that his father had meant those with true strength were those with true friends.
That particular unveiling had touched even Golemon's stone heart, as well as Cyberdramon's, who himself had only just been in it for the fighting up to that point really. And after that, Kiriha had started to care much more about the well-being of all his Digimon.
So Golemon had stayed out of a sense of duty to Kiriha and, after the war, had ended, he had grown to enjoy the company of the others, though he himself did not often contribute much to conversations.
But where could they be now?
What he saw up ahead was not, in fact other Digimon, but a column of humans that were threading their way across the hillocks of the sparse landscape beside the mountain. They were rather scruffy looking, with scraggly bears and long hair, clothes made out of animal hide any various scraps that they seemed to have somehow cobbled together and they each had some kind of blade or other weapon clutched at their side. Golemon headed towards them, not pausing in his stride even when he saw them, but wondering what a group of humans were doing in a place like this. Maybe one of them knew Kiriha.
It didn't take long for the men to notice him approaching, for a giant, walking creature made of stone was not exactly discrete, and Golemon was not even trying to be so. They immediately backed away from him, growling and raising their swords as they stared at him in shock, baring rotten looking teeth in growls of warning. Golemon pulled to a stop in front of them, staring down at them steadily and calmly, not feeling at all threatened by their blades and regarding them curiously, wondering if he should say anything.
"Is that what I think it is?" one of them asked. "You think they really do exist?"
"Could be," another grunted. "It looks like it's made of stone."
"It's got to be one of them Stone Giants that live in the mountains," said the first. "I hear that they fling boulders the size of houses at one another when they're in a bad mood and can break entire mountains."
"What have you been eating? It's not a Giant. It's not big enough to be one of them. It is clearly some kind of troll."
"No, trolls aren't made of stone. They turn to stone when the Sun's out."
"The Sun is out, you halfwit!"
"Well, yeah, but trolls don't move around when it gets turned to stone, right?"
"Well clearly they can considering this one right here is doing just that!"
"Should we not be more afraid," another one asked, backing away. "Trolls ain't something that I would just stand there arguing in front of. Look at him eyeing us up. He might want to eat us."
"Eat us?" snarled the first one, hefting his sword. "No trolls is going to feast on Dunlendings such as we. Cut it down before it attacks! Trolls are pretty stupid so we can outsmart the guy."
The human charged forwards and swung his sword into Golemon's leg, shattering the blade with the impacted. Golemon growled, not pleased that he had been struck like that and knocked the Wild Man flying with a flick of his toes so he crashed into some boulders nearby. The other Men roared and charged him en masse, close to thirty of them in the group and wielding spears and axes and a few of them with bows and arrows, and they struck out at Golemon with everything that they had, slashing at his legs and arms, jabbing at his belly and shooting at his face.
Golemon stepped backwards under the assault, not injured but very much annoyed, throwing an arm in front of his face to protect his eyes which were about the only vulnerable part of his body. The Men pursued him with roars of battle, hacking at his stomach and knees for all they were worth.
Now Golemon was ticked off. Though he had never attacked a human before, there was a first time for everything, and he roared, raising his huge arms above his head to bring them down like giant sledgehammers, flattening several of them to the ground beneath them and slaying them instantly, stepping forwards to stamp on another and then swinging one arm aside to send everyone within range flying outwards like they'd been hit with a club the size of a tree-trunk.
Practically the entire group of Wild Men had been dealt with in those few attacks alone, and the others roared and increased their attacks, falling back with the archers to stay out of the way of Golemon's limbs. But they were counting on Golemon bending over to place his hands on the ground, aiming the vents jutting out of his back in their direction.
"SULPHUR PLUME!" he snarled, and blasted out copious amounts of super-heated gas that enveloped the remaining Men. He himself was immune to the heat, being made of rock, but they certainly were not. What followed was not what could be called pleasant, but when it was done all that was left was a soot-stained expanse of ash in front of Golemon for several metres. The Men had been incinerated.
As previously stated, Golemon was not that intelligent. He had attacked without thinking properly and had slain the Men without really understanding their reasons for attacking. Fortunately those Dunlendings had been on their way to help with the pillaging of Rohan so Golemon could be let off but it was a good thing that they had not been Men of Rohan themselves or a major misunderstanding could have occurred.
As it was, Golemon continued heading on southwards as if nothing had happened, and he was now drawing close to the end of the mountain range. He, like the other Digimon, was drawing closer to Rohan.
And in the sky above him, a group large black birds condensed together in giant flock that from a distance could be mistaken for a black cloud were circling around, flapping to stay aloft and constantly calling to one another in some raucous language that most could not understand. They looked quite a lot like crows, though they were slightly larger than a normal crow, but not big enough to be a raven. And they certainly were not crows or ravens.
These were Crébain, an entirely different race of birds native to Dunland, and used by Saruman the White as spies, keeping an eye on all the lands around the fortress of Isengard that Golemon was also drawing closer to. The Crébain continued cawing to one another as they winged their way South back towards the fortress home of their master, squawking and croaking as they went, their wings beating making a sound like giant cloths flapping in the wind. They had just seen everything that Golemon had done, and they had a feeling that Saruman would be quite interested to hear what they had to say this time.
At the destination of the Crébain, everything was going on as per normal, with more and more weapons being crafted and armours moulded, trees burned and Uruk-Hai created from the mud within the pits. Saruman the White oversaw everything from his Tower of Orthanc, making frequent trips down to keep a closer eye on the progress. Despite the strange explosion that had happened yesterday, things were still running pretty smoothly.
Still, Saruman was keen to learn what had been the cause behind that explosion. It had been very similar to something that he had in mind for the future of the war, and he was wondering if there was something that he could use to help develop the device that he had not yet looked into. But thus far he had found nothing. The orcs had made makeshift repairs to the ramp that had been damaged, and everything was continuing on as normal.
The White Wizard looked up as he heard the distinct cawing noise of his Crébain spies sweeping down into the pits, screaming their grating cries for everyone around them to hear, the birds flapping around the various passageways as one of them alighted by Saruman, its head cocked and looking up to him as he relayed the message that all the others were screaming. Most of the Orcs did not have a clue what was being said – in fact, none of them did – but Saruman was well versed in many different tongues of many different races, including the Crébain, and he listening to the birds' report with growing intrigue.
"Interesting," he mused to himself. "You are certain of this?" he asked the bird.
The bird nodded and flapped on its perch to emphasize its point.
"Certainly I have never heard tell of a Troll that has the ability to do that," Saruman murmured. "And to be walking about in the middle of the day so far from Mordor – there are no Olog-Hai in these lands yet, and no Olog-Hai can do that either. And it was not large enough to be some species of Giant?"
Another cawing answer.
"Then it would seem," the Wizard swept away, "that this demands further investigation."
The Crébain flapped away and the nearby orcs got back on with what they had been doing before. None of them noticed the tiny little beings that were huddled together beneath some rocks nearby – the Bombmon still had yet to find their way out of the pit.
"What do you think that was all about?" one of them asked.
"I don't know, but for some reason that made me feel a bit uneasy," the other said.
"I'm with you there. But seriously, we have to find a way out of these stupid pits!"
There you have it guys. Some of those little passages went on longer than I intended them to, and I was going to give the Bombmon a longer passage that that, but in the end I think that it worked out for the best. Hope you enjoyed it. There was some action involved, but I think my favourite bit to write there was the bit with the Gaossmon and their fear of water, which is in their official description so I didn't make that up. But it was quite hilarious to write, at least for me. Hope you liked it too.
Next time…
Beelzemon and Wisemon deliberate about their next move in the Golden Wood of Lothlórien, the images from the Mirror still fresh in the former's mind. But before they can make a plan of action the alarm is raised – Lothlórien is under attack by an orc raiding party. What will Elf and Orc alike make of the new additions to the war?
Coming up:- Chapter 27 : A Demon of Good