Chapter Twenty-Nine: Firing
They were retracing their trek of days immediately before, south-bound along the eastern perimeter of the forest. This was where Kurbag and Mushog had managed to track the deer smell from earlier, which was very convenient in view of the present venture. Bragdagash had made no bones about the fact that he was restless, eager to break camp and head for the mountains as soon as Grymawk was well enough – but those of course were northbound, in the other direction. Little chance that the chief or any of the others would have cause for coming back this way, which reduced the odds of being found out.
It also upped the likelihood of a successful outing. They were far enough now from camp that their smell and speech should not have already alerted the animals in this area.
There was a little rise, and when they came to the top of it Mushog put a hand on Kurbag's arm. A doe was grazing at the forest's edge, and the direction of the breeze was such that it carried her scent toward them and not the other way around. She fed unaware of the two Orcs watching her: the tall Uruk sizing her up down the stock of the crossbow he carried, or the half-Uruk standing beside him.
Mushog grunted, shoulders shifting as he adjusted his aim. Kurbag waited. At length he lowered the weapon and silently put his fingers into the pouch hanging around his neck. Kurbag watched, a bit skeptical, as Mushog strung the crossbow: a complicated business that involved fitting an end of the bowstring to one end of the lathe, then fitting a loop of the second, longer, length of cord over that, before attending to the other side, and finally unstringing the longer cord again.
Kurbag had seen Grymawk do this often enough and the goblin had made it look easy, but with Mushog doing it the whole process seemed much more laborious. "Well that only took about ten minutes," he commented as Mushog braced the bow against the ground and spanned it, winching the string back until he had it cocked.
Mushog grinned. Raising the weapon, he fitted a bolt in the groove of the crossbow and trained it on the doe, still grazing obliviously beneath the trees. "Gonna send it right up her arse," he said, taking aim.
There was a click as the bolt was released. The thud as it struck harmlessly in the ground below was not audible from their vantage point, but the deer must have heard something; it shied and bounded for the trees. Kurbag laughed silently while Mushog mouthed a few curses. "Never mind," said Mushog at last. "I think I can still see her there. Hand me another bolt." With the bow already strung it didn't take him as long to prepare this time.
The tark had come closer in the meantime, evidently satisfied that they knew the futility of trying to send her back. The two Orcs ignored her. Crouching down in the long grass, they waited for Mushog's deer to get up the pluck to reemerge and provide him with a better target. Kurbag only turned toward Maevyn long enough to indicate that she should crouch down as well, bobbing his hand emphatically until she did.
As Maevyn knelt down, she heard a coughing sound in the grass nearby, and saw a big black crow looking at her out of one bright eye. It opened its dark beak, and she was startled by the serrated edges. Not like any crow she'd seen before.
"Gonna get in trouble," said the bird. It said it in her own voice.
She stared at it for a moment, uncomprehending. Then she heard a thump, and a squeal, followed by Mushog's jubilant exclamation. When she looked there was no deer, but Kurbag and Mushog had both stood up and were wading through the grass down the hill, talking cheerfully as they went.
Maevyn looked at where she had seen the crow but it wasn't there anymore.
"Did you see that?" Mushog was saying to Kurbag. "I'm sure that was a heart shot. Second try!"
"Not bad," said Kurbag. "Is this where you hit her?"
The ground was churned up, and there was blood on the long grass. Mushog knelt to examine it more closely, while Kurbag walked further up to see if he could find the first bolt, the one that had missed, but it had entirely disappeared in the grass. He straightened and looked back. "Hi," he called to Grushak's Brat, who had followed them down the slope. "See if you can find that bolt from before."
Mushog made a dismissive noise. "It's just the one," he said.
"Grymawk counts them. He'll notice if there's any missing, even if it is just the one."
"There was a bird," said the Brat, stopping and pointed up the slope. "It – " She faltered and looked back in the direction she was pointing.
Mushog straightened and looked at her in annoyance. "Look, you followed us. Go make yourself useful and find that bolt."
"I didn't come to help you, I came to get Grymawk's bow back," she flared at him.
Mushog hefted the crossbow, looking down at her from his full height. "You can try."
Kurbag sighed. "Don't do anything stupid," he told the tark. "We're going to bring it back. Don't make him decide to use it on you in the meantime."
"Gonna get in trou-ble."
It was the girl's voice, but it had not come from her. Her eyes widened, fixed on something beyond Mushog. The two Orcs turned quickly to find a large black bird on a limb, preening its dull feathers.
"Craban," said Mushog at length, dismissive.
"That's uncanny," said Kurbag, staring.
"You were never at Isengard." Mushog was unimpressed. "Thicker than flies on shit." The bird stopped its grooming long enough to give him a cold stare. "We've wasted enough time. I'm going in."
"What, now? You'll never find it if you go now. You need to give it time to bed down first."
"Not for a heart shot," said Mushog. "And if it hasn't gone to earth yet, what's that to me? I have a nose, haven't I?" He started for the trees.
"You'll get in trouble," said the craban, but this time it did not speak in the Brat's voice. It spoke in Mushog's.
He stopped short.
Bragdagash's voice this time: "Don't want any of you fucking around in the woods."
Unnerved, Mushog tried to mask his disquiet with an ugly laugh. "Nice trick," he said sarcastically.
Another bird appeared, flapping silently out of the forest to land on the branch and sidle up next to the first. Something dangled wetly from its beak. "She is ours now," said the first bird, in a charred black voice. "We have already taken her eyes.
Mushog swore and braced the crossbow against the ground, winching back the string. The two crebain gave him just time enough to load it before they rose up on wings silent as an owl's, beating leisurely back into the forest. Mushog loosed his bolt without any effect except to see it disappear in the trees. A muffled thwock came from somewhere in the dark beyond.
"Well," said Kurbag, speaking into the stillness. "That was a waste of time." Sudden alarm as he saw Mushog raise the crossbow up: "Wait – "
Mushog flung the weapon down in anger. It didn't even make a very satisfying sound, hitting the grass with a shuddering rattle.
"FOR FUCK'S SACK, MUSHOG!" Kurbag hurried forward to pick it up, looking it over quickly. It looked intact, which was luck undeserved as far as he was concerned, but he knew that didn't mean it was undamaged.
"You lost those three arrows too," said the tark disapprovingly, and Kurbag wondered how she had ever managed to live this long. It was like she had no sense of self-preservation whatsoever.
Mushog turned toward her, murder in his eyes. "You want them?" He started toward her.
Smart enough at least to realize she would not outrun an Uruk over open ground, she cut for the woods, the grass whipping at the ragged skirt of her dress, with Mushog in snarling pursuit. He stopped just short of the trees, screaming after her:
"They're not arrows, you little shit, THEY'RE BOLTS!"
"…All right," said Kurbag wearily. "All right. Enough is enough." They had lost three crossbolts, Mushog's deer and Grushak's tark, all in the same outing, and it was obvious that there would be no further hunting here. It was time to accept defeat.
-.-.-.-
The forest was old, and angry, with a bitterness that he did not understand and did not care to. There were no signs of nearby habitation or interference, and the trees themselves looked healthy, but something, sometime, had earned their continuing animosity, and it was this resentment that followed him as he stalked through the plant life.
Nazluk moved with purpose, but the path that he pursued was neither straight nor unbroken. He stopped continuously, searching the canopy overhead with an assessing eye. When he finally found what he was looking for, he approached the massive fir tree with his hands open, palms up like a supplicant. "No biting steel or tinder glow, so in your branches let me go."
The tree gave an unmistakable twitch.
Nazluk's hands dropped to rest on his hips. He sneered a little. "Think I want to crawl around your sorry self? Not by my will, but that of my chief. You want us to leave? Well, so we shall, but I must do this first. Let me up and let me look, and I swear we'll be gone the sooner for it."
No response. Around them all was still, and Nazluk, satisfied, stooped to take off his boots. He had not lied. He was not carrying his knives, and as he straightened he felt naked without them. Generally when Nazluk went without a blade he wasn't wearing anything else either.
Grasping the first branch with his lean hands, the Orc began to work his way upward. He was neither as fast nor as nimble as Grymawk, but he was capable enough, and the tree he was climbing had made no motion to throw him off, or not so far, anyway. With steady effort he cleared the main body of the canopy.
Exposed beneath a sun that was either at its apex or near enough as made no difference, Nazluk pulled the back of his shirt up over his head for a makeshift hood. He did not care if he looked ridiculous. There was no one up here that he cared about impressing, and the sunlight aggravated his exposed skin. Nazluk hoped with all his heart that little runt Grymawk improved soon. He did not want this task devolving to him in future.
Slitting his eyes against the light, he scanned out over the tops of the trees until he had his proper bearings and was facing toward the mountains. He squinted, then nearly lost his hold when he heard a sudden hoarse cough, almost in his ear. "Shaaaa—! Fuckery!" he swore, holding fast and squeezing his eyes shut as tight as they would go.
When he could finally bring himself to open them again, he looked around him, still breathing a little quickly, and saw a great black bird on a branch not far away. It was turning its head to look at him, first from one bright black eye, then the other. Its beak was closed, but Nazluk still had a clear view of the jagged seam on either side.
"So Bragdagash was right about you," Nazluk growled. "Broshan, zi zog-hai. And who is your master, eh?"
-.-.-.-
Disclaimer: Tolkien's works, characters and concepts are copyright J. R. R. Tolkien. The story Orc-brat and the characters and events introduced in "Chapter Twenty-Nine: Firing" are all copyright The Lauderdale (cartoon6 at hotmail dot com). "Chapter Twenty-Nine" published July 15, 2018.
"They're not arrows, you little shit, they're BOLTS!" Grymawk carries and uses both crossbolts and arrows, but Mushog is correct. The projectiles he lost were bolts and Maevyn should totally know better.
Broshan, zi zog-hai. "Hail, great black bird."
Google bird teeth for your choice of bird teeth for the crebain. I waffle between something like what geese and swans have and something more prehistoric, but keep coming back to the former. Unnerving, but not unprecedented.
