Ronkûr was growing impatient. Torture was usually an amusement for him - something he could enjoy for days on end with the right partner. But when torture was a means to an end, as it was now, he burned with frustration. He found himself sorely tempted to snap the stubborn Dwarf's neck and take his chances sniffing out the Elfling's trail before it grew colder. He doubted the tracking skills of his group, though. He had been given the worst snaga of the lot, a disobedient Warg, and the two badly broken new Uruk-Hai with which to prove himself. They had found Kili by chance, not by skill, and he knew it.

Ronkûr decided to think, which he hated, and use Common Speech, which he hated even more.

He pulled Kili's head up off the ground once more.

"She abandon you." he hissed in Kili's ear. "Flower bloods do not fight. They promise Dwarf friendship, but they lie. They run."

Ronkûr twisted Kili around to face Lonely Mountain. "Elf stay home - Dwarf lose home. It is their way. You should curse her. Curse her loud, for your god to hear."

A curse did echo across the open ground, but it came from Ronkûr, not Kili. Rhavaniel's arrow pierced the back of his thick neck and exited the front of his throat. He dropped to his knees, gurgling blood.

One snaga fell with an arrow to his head, and other shrieked with an arrow slicing his shoulder.

Rhavaniel reached the top of the outcropping and dropped her bow for her glowing sword.

"Leave him be!" she commanded the two snaga left alive. They snarled at her and drew their own blades.

They had made a mistake taking their eyes off of Kili. He was able to grab the small utility ax that the dead snaga had stolen from him. He brought it down on the foot of the nearest Orc, slicing through flesh and bone, and crippling him.

The last Orc, already wounded, seeing that he was alone in this fight, turned and ran. Rhavaniel had not expecting that outcome and hesitated. She could not leave him alive to bring help. Mercy was a luxury she could no longer afford. She chased after him.

Kili cut the bonds on his hands with the ax. The Orc he had crippled was panicked and shrieking, unable to even think enough to bind off the wound and stop the loss of blood. Kili brought the ax down on the creature's head and silenced him.

All that was left alive on the outcrop was Kili, and a dying Ronkûr. The Orc still had the whip gripped in one hand, with the other hand on his throat. Kili stared at him. He put one foot on Ronkûr's chest to brace himself, grabbed the arrow with both hands, and slowly pulled the remains of the shaft through the Orc's neck. The arrow had been the only thing stopping the bleeding. Ronkûr was finished.