Two little Orcs shuffled down a corridor, both looking like death warmed up. The slightly taller one occasionally touched his aching head as though that actually did any good, while the smaller one walked like someone who had slept all night in a sitting position on a cold, hard stone floor - which, in fact, was exactly what he had done.
"Do you really think he won't kill us if we get some of his hangover cure?" asked Grishtakh for the fifth time. Gruzlak sighed, trying to come up with a decent variation to the same reply he had given four times already.
"I'm sure he needs it himself, too. Besides, I don't think he'd kill me..."
"Yes, well, I doubt he has enough mercy to spare for me as well," Grishtakh muttered. "Let's just be very, very careful."
They reached the wooden door that kept them from their relief, almost beyond caring whether it came in the form of medicine or a swift departure into the afterlife. Gruzlak touched the doorknob gingerly and began to turn it slowly, wincing at every tiny crack and squeak. Remembering that the door creaked as well, he took a deep breath and pushed it open quickly; it gave a loud, abrupt squeal, but at least it was over soon. The two Orcs crept into the room as quietly as they could, eyes wide with caution and adventurous excitement. Gruzlak locked his eyes on Krazum's bag, but Grishtakh happened to glance at its owner and stopped advancing immediately.
Krazum seemed to be sleeping as soundly as he could under the weight of his goblin one-night stand. Grinning a little at seeing what his friend had been up to at night, Grishtakh nudged his partner in crime to bring his attention to the potentially scandalous scene. (Scandalous to Krazum and not really such a big deal to anybody else, that is.) Gawking at it for a while over his shoulder before he fully grasped the meaning of Gutbrúg lying upon his mentor of sorts, Gruzlak turned around and approached the thin mattress. He crouched before it and stared into the faces of the sleeping Orcs with a rather neutral expression on his own face.
"Do you think he can breathe all right?" he asked after a while.
"Looks like it."
Gruzlak frowned thoughtfully, then nodded and began to creep towards Krazum's bag of mostly bile-flavoured but very effective medicine. The bag was also filled with herbs and some potentially noise-making instruments for preparing them, and finding a ready-made cure that might work on a hangover without waking up the owner of all these things suddenly seemed even harder than before. An acrid smell seeped out of the open bag, spreading slowly in the stagnant air. Gruzlak's nose began to twitch, but it was Grishtakh who suddenly sneezed so loudly that the pair of Orcs on the mattress flinched.
"Oh, that was such a clever thing to do," the expression on Gruzlak's face seemed to say as he turned to stare at the other small Orc, clutching a small box containing salve of some sort. For whatever reason, it had been left open in the bag and was the source of the smell. Grishtakh shrugged awkwardly, his eyes wide and his nose runny. Gruzlak quickly put the box away and glanced nervously at the bed.
Krazum awoke in the mass grave under several other bodies. For one stunned moment, his head throbbing where it was wounded, he tried to determine the exact number by the weight of the corpses and the number of blunt armour edges digging into his flesh. Reality, however, returned quickly and mercilessly, forcing him to think of more important things.
"The corpses have not been lit..."
Krazum awoke again, this time to current reality, and yet under the weight of someone's body. He grumbled quietly, waiting for his heart to stop pounding, and took a deep breath before he felt brave enough to raise his head and look. For once the sight of Gutbrúg was a relief to him, although he was pinned down to the mattress by the smaller Orc and no pleasant sensations accompanied this contact. Krazum lifted his hand, cautiously at first, and then gave the lout a shove that almost made his upper body roll off him.
"Oi," Krazum muttered, "you've been there all night, haven't you?"
Gutbrúg mumbled something incoherent for a while before regaining control of his tongue. "Looks like I have. Hang on, I'll get off you before we get too numb to move..."
"No, wait, don't mo... OWW!" Krazum yelped as he lost some pubic hair to the abrupt separation. "I was going to say don't move because we're stuck together, you damned idiot!"
"It only stung for a second," Gutbrúg said proudly.
"Nitwit," growled the red-haired Orc, sitting up slowly and painfully. He examined his fingers blearily. "Strange. I didn't think so much of your skin could fit under such short nails..."
"So that's where it went!" exclaimed the ever chipper goblin, inspecting his sides. "Well, can I have it back? My flanks kind of sting."
Krazum snorted quietly and took the first good look of the morning at the small room. It seemed to take him a while to realise that he and Gutbrúg weren't alone.
"Morning," Gruzlak said tentatively, raising a hand in a cautious greeting.
A few minutes of growling and complaining later, while breaking dried specks of semen off his stomach and pubic hair, Krazum threw one more annoyed glance at the suffering intruder. "And no, I wasn't going to make anything for your bloody headaches. Well, for Gruzlak I would, but not for you impertinent little shits."
"But Krazum," whinged Grishtakh, "don't you feel the pain of a thousand Oliphaunts stomping on your brain when you just blink or breathe?"
"No," Krazum lied, trying to hide his shaking hands.
"Gutbrúg! Tell him to stop being a lousy healer and make the hangover stop killing us!"
Although thrilled in a strange way by the incredulous rage he sensed radiating from Krazum at that comment, Gutbrúg decided to spare him from another fit of fury so soon after a night of beer and debauchery.
"I don't think so, Grishtakh."
"But Gutbruuu-ug!"
"Try to understand my situation, Grishtakh..."
At that, Krazum's ears twitched ominously, even though the reason eluded even him at the moment.
"Morgoth curse it, he's probably turned into a love-sick wimp! Look what your teacher has done to my mate, Gruzlak! Right then, all hope is lost for him, Ghâshsag, my friend," lamented Grishtakh at the thin air. (Or in the case of that room, not quite so thin.) "Next he'll be joining Chief Gorluk in the ranks of the secretly inefficient. Gorakh did warn him about being the dangerously unorkish type..."
"If you say so, Grishtakh!" Gutbrúg laughed.
"Grishtakh," Krazum suddenly spat. "Ghâshsag, Gorluk, Gorakh, Gutbrúg, bloody Ghâshsag again, Grishtakh..."
"What's the matter this time, O easily annoyed one?" asked Grishtakh.
Krazum snorted filthy air, his red eyes giving him an ill look.
"What is it with you and so many other fucking Orcs I've met having a name that starts with that exact same sound? Why is it always a G in the bloody beginning? I know most Orcs seem to like the fact that their namers had enough phlegm to spit out all their names, but it makes me go fucking ga-ga."
The other Orcs could only gape at what was the most bizarre outburst from Krazum in the last few days.
"And what is it going to take to make that stick up your arse disappear anywhere but further inside?" Gutbrúg finally asked, somewhat frustrated. "Does the usual way not work, or were you just faking everything last night?"
"Yeah, and did you conveniently forget that Gruzlak here also has a name that you shouldn't like?"
Krazum waved his hand dismissively. "That does not count. Gruzlak is a fine name, unlike the shite you others are called by."
"What about Grilták?" Grishtakh had the audacity to ask. He did not get to hear Krazum's thoughts on the subject, for the second the seemingly innocent question left his lips, Gutbrúg's eyes widened; he grabbed his friend's arm and some clothes, ignored the "But my hangover" whining from said friend and was out the door with him like a sudden gust of wind in the claustrophobia-inducing room.
"And that's the third time I've saved your hide," Gutbrúg told his little friend, trying to pull on his rather impractical clothes.
"How do I get something for my headache now?" asked Grishtakh.
"You can just suffer for now. I was hoping he'd be up for another shag before getting out of bed."
Meanwhile, Krazum was busy rubbing the remnants of sleep from his eyes. Gruzlak handed him whatever clothes he could find, looking expectant.
"Here you can observe one of the many things that can happen when you get too drunk, little one," Krazum finally said.
"You let the one who drives you mad do you even though you didn't like it that much the first time he did it?"
"You're a clever one. You'll go farther in life than those dungrats, mark my words." Krazum grinned and patted the small Orc's head. Gruzlak began to beam immediately as though the gesture had activated a switch of some kind in his head.
When Prince Anguelen strutted down the corridor, annoyingly energetic and cheerful as ever, he was not expecting anyone else to be up at such an ungodly hour. Therefore it was sheer good luck that prevented him from strutting straight into Gutbrúg, who was just coming round the corner at a rather sluggish speed.
"Well, well. Who drove you out of bed this early in the morning?" asked the Elf, avoiding the crash by swirling quickly round the Orc in a manner that made it look like he was trying to dance with him.
"Not Krazum, if that's what you were expecting," chuckled said Orc. "One of those pocket-sized brats I call my friends had the nerve to wake us up so Krazum could make them a hangover drink. I left before he started to yell for real."
"Ah. Another night spent in the arms of your newly found lover..?" Anguelen asked glibly, leaning against the wall.
"Not so much in his arms as at his arms' length," specified Gutbrúg. "But it was mostly just because of the positions we used."
"Good, good. I trust everything went... smoothly?"
"Oh yeah," the Orc said, looking pleased with himself.
Anguelen smiled and looked him straight in the eye. "Well, perhaps then you could return the lubricating oil you nicked from me a while ago?"
Gutbrúg cocked his head. "No, not really."
"Come now, my Orkish friend. Neither Thraknash nor I have the ability to become slick without a little help from the vial."
"I could give it back to you if you gave me something in return."
"Oh I see," said the Elf, still smiling. "What is it that you need?"
"I'd like one of those gifts you've been keeping to yourself. Burzum's got one, and I'm getting a bit sick of him fawning over that bloody ring when I've got nothing to make him envious."
Anguelen's smile turned into a grin. "Fair enough, but does not your success with getting some make him envious enough?"
"Not really," Gutbrúg said, shrugging. "He's certain he'll get even with me one of these days."
Anguelen didn't bother to mention that with Eldehto, Burzum would probably have to wait a little bit more than just until 'one of these days'. "And we can't have that, can we? Then let us go get your gift..."
Exposing his impressive teeth with a jaw-popping yawn, Thraknash dragged himself towards the room with the most noise coming out of it. It sounded like Arthael and his father; furthermore, it sounded like they were talking about Anguelen. Thraknash stopped just outside the room and listened. The dialect the father and son spoke was quite different from what he expected to hear in the area, but he found he could understand it very well.
"It's just a little... Well, I never knew you used to do things like that, Dad. I'm just a little surprised, that's all."
"You should not have asked about him if you were not prepared to hear the answer, Arthael," said Eadhelm. "There is nothing shameful about sharing your body with a fellow warrior, son! Why, it was perfectly common among us lads. It brought us together like no inspiring speech could."
"But Dad, I still don't want to hear about you having... I mean... you know, doing it!"
During the brief silence, Thraknash could almost sense Eadhelm's headshake from behind the wall. After a moment, Arthael spoke again.
"What about Mother? Why did you marry her if you had such fun with your fellow soldiers?"
"Son," Eadhelm chuckled, "soldiers may be each other's only companions on the battlefield, but I would not have wanted to marry any of them!"
Arthael seemed to give this some thought. "What battle did you go to with the Elven prince, then?"
"Oh, I told him I'd take him to hunt spiders in Mirkwood. All, eh, preparations had been made when his father suddenly told us that his son was not to leave the town on pain of getting grounded for ten years."
Though he tried to stop it, Thraknash let out an amused snort. The dusty air then made him sneeze, providing him with an excuse for the previous sound. Eadhelm poked his head in the corridor and smiled at the Uruk.
"Ah, one of Anguelen's friends," he said in the Common Speech. Thraknash nodded, perfectly content to let Eadhelm keep thinking he couldn't understand the more archaic speech the man had used to address his son.
Ghâshsag looked up at his friend with bloodshot eyes. "Did you get that medicine?"
"Well, no. The Cranky One woke up and you know how he is in the morning."
"Just like he is at any other time," Ghâshsag said, nodding. "So much for that, then. But not to worry, I found something that's bound to cheer us up!"
Legolas glanced at the small Orc, who did not look one bit like he needed cheering up despite a hangover and reddened eyes that made him look downright frightening. The noble Elf turned his tormented gaze back to the cool stone that made up the walls of the black tower and encased him in this relentless dark; this was no place for an Elf to be, no place for someone whose heart was not pulled by temptations of wickedness. The twins, for their part, did not seem to fare any better in the company of what they loathed more than anything else out of all the things that were. Legolas had spoken to Gimli of the way the tower made him despair, but the Dwarf had merely told him he had no appreciation for fine stonework. He did, however, admit that he too sometimes got the strangest sensation of having been pulled into all this for entirely silly reasons. As soon as they were at the land's border, he said, they would immediately put as much distance between themselves and these strangers as they could and forget about the whole business with those Orcs too.
Suddenly wishing to draw strength from his friend, Legolas turned to Gimli - but the Dwarf was not looking at him.
"Where did you find that?" Grishtakh squealed, grabbing some of the moss Ghâshsag was holding.
"It was in a basket in the corner over there. I think Arthael was drying it for later use," Ghâshsag said. "Of course, it won't stick to our chins now..."
"That's fine with me!" Holding the crisp square of moss to his lower face, Grishtakh began to open his voice. "Arr... yarrr... corrrr blimey..."
"Me bollocks, Groin son of Codpiece! They be on fire!" Ghâshsag growled with his voice as low as it would go and his Rs rolling.
"Douse them with malt beeerrr!" rolled Grishtakh.
That was as far as they got with their imitations as Gimli suddenly got up, shadowing the two Orcs in his wrath. "Brats," he thundered, "shall I teach you a thing or two about Dwarves?"
"Will it hurt?" asked Grishtakh.
Gimli did not answer that, but the look on his face rather spoke for itself.
"Gutbrúg, really, let me touch it just for a little moment at least," Burzum whined, his controlled façade crumbling with excitement. He had been begging in such manner nearly every second he had spent following his friend and Anguelen.
"I would like to allow you such a simple pleasure, mate, but seeing as how you already have that ring and all..."
"Don't be so bloody selfish," Burzum hissed before his voice turned whiny again. "You know I've always wanted to have something like that. I just want to touch it, damn you, I'd be happy with just that!"
Anguelen could have very well told him that the chain Gutbrúg had wrapped loosely round his neck was most likely not really the one that had been used to imprison Morgoth, but Gutbrúg was having so much fun fooling Burzum. Besides, the chain did look old and abused, so the Orc would have just continued to believe it to be such a fabled item if he wanted to.
"That's not such a hard problem to solve," declared Gruzlak, who had finally caught up with the others, with Krazum close behind. "You let Gutbrúg touch the ring, and he lets you have a look at the chain."
Gutbrúg scratched his head. "Not a bad idea, actually. Saves us the trouble of fighting."
While Gutbrúg and Burzum devised a complex plan on how to hand their respective gifts to each other for short examination without a chance for either one to hold both at the same time, Anguelen took notice of the smaller Moria-Orcs and their sullen expressions.
"What's wrong with you two?"
"The Dwarf," said Ghâshsag.
"He really has no sense of humour," continued Grishtakh.
"He put us down on his rugged knee and spanked our innocent little bums!" cried Ghâshsag, causing Anguelen to burst out laughing as innocence was not exactly the first thing that came to his mind when thinking of the goblins. "That was just unnecessary. I thought he was going to punish us!"
"I think he did," mused Grishtakh. "He left it at that, remember? He was just trying to turn us on and then send us on our merry way!"
"Yeah!"
"What a bastard!"
"But not a bad spanker."
"Well then, gentlemen!" Anguelen cried at his mostly unappreciative companions, grinning briefly at the goblins.
Krazum looked like he could neither sit nor stand comfortably, Gutbrúg stood next to him looking not in the least bit guilty, the other Orcs stood around like the bland little extras they were and the Dwarf and his friends sulked in a corner with the undying hatred of someone grievously wronged in their eyes. Anguelen smiled sunnily at them all.
"I'm sure you'll be glad to know that we'll soon be continuing our journey, and some of you will probably even leave our happy company."
Gimli gripped his axe tighter at the word 'happy'.
"We know," Grishtakh yawned. "You told us last night when you finally woke up..."
"Although it was a bit harder to tell what you were saying back then," added Ghâshsag.
"...but what I really want to know is if you really meant what you said about my bottom when I whined about it to Ghâshsag - something about it being utterly unattractive but with potential for better once I start getting some muscle?"
"Well, if I said that, I must've meant that. Now, other questions?" Anguelen looked around. "None? Good, then we can finally get going."
Thraknash looked awkwardly around the throne room. "...and I suppose that's when I knew that I wouldn't really mind, you know, with an Elf if I ever had the opportunity. Sure, sometimes I wonder if he's staying with me just because I'm an Orc and he thinks Orcs are really smashing, but I don't know, he told me he wouldn't eat for many hours if something happened to me, though, and..."
"Thraknash," Eadhelm interrupted gently, "you are very young, are you not?"
The Uruk shuffled his feet. "I was bred in a mudpit just three years before the final battles, but I haven't felt as immature as I used to back then in a long time. It's just that sometimes Anguelen, you know..."
"He has lived for longer than three centuries, yes," chuckled the old man. "However, he was not mature when I was young and he has not changed much in all these years, save for learning to speak Westron better. You will be fine with him."
"You think so?" Thraknash laughed a little. "Thanks, mate! I always thought all Men were full of their own pathetic shit, but you're a really smart bloke!"
"Oh, but they are; that is why I live in a tower far away from most of them," Eadhelm said, laughing as well. He turned his head towards the sound of several boots and some slightly more delicate shoes echoing in a corridor. "Ah, there they are..."
"And so we leave again for adventures unforeseen," Anguelen said cheerfully as he came into view. "We're grateful for your hospitality, as well as really sorry for that pile of sick behind the bench."
"You're welcome, and that is quite all right. We are fortunate to live in a house of stone, for the floors are easier to clean."
"Yes, don't worry about it. The bird that came with the throne has made worse messes indeed," added Arthael.
"And please, do take care of yourself and your companions in the world, Prince; there are few places where Orcs are remembered with kindness. And if I may say so," Eadhelm lowered his voice and looked at Anguelen seriously, "your young brother needs the most looking after of them all. I have never seen a bigger pussy in my life, and I have seen an Entwife taking a bath."
"I don't understand, Anguelen. Do Entwives take their cats to the bath with them? Wouldn't they just get wet? And why is he comparing me to a wet cat?" Eldehto blinked, looking worried. "Brother, why are you crying? Have I said something stupid again?"
As much as Anguelen would've loved to answer that, he was in too much pain from laughter-induced cramps. He quickly lost his ability to stand on his own and had to be supported by Thraknash, whose mouth was twitching with stifled laughter. Burzum was happy to make a flattering comment about Eldehto's fetching feline qualities, but it fell upon deaf ears; the Elf's distress just seemed to grow as his assurances to stop saying stupid things did nothing to stop his brother's pain. Eventually Anguelen did pull himself together enough to push his confused brother out the door and leave the tower with mirth in his heart. While the other Orcs began to pour out into the sunlight, Ghâshsag stayed behind for a short moment.
"Have you really seen one of the walking trees?" he asked, looking at Eadhelm with very wide eyes.
"I have, little one," said the old man with a wink. Ghâshsag nodded and took a few running steps to catch the dark cloud of Burzum's ring, managing to steal an admiring glance at the man before he was finally outside.
Arthael just looked at his father askance, raising an eyebrow.
"Oh, Arthael, no brat was ever harmed by an occasional tall story. They love a little excitement!"
The sun raged on in the firmament as usual. Anguelen let his lazy gaze wander in the burnt wasteland, squinting at the dark, brooding blotch his temporary travelling companions formed a little distance away. Had he been blessed with any sort of consideration for those different from him, he would have understood why they were in such a hurry to remove themselves from his company; that not being the case, however, his mind soon turned to other thoughts. He was hoping for an end to the summer from which there was no escape outside his native forest, and for the first time since he had left, the seemingly endless open ground was beginning to unnerve him. Perhaps all the lands beyond his home would be this barren and lifeless...
"It's probably a circle," Sharrásh muttered from his cosy place in the shade. Since nobody seemed to know what he was talking about, he tried to be clearer. "It would make sense, being round a round object."
"And as usual, nobody knows what you are on about, but I don't suppose you care," whinged Ghâshsag.
"The land! It's round the tower, and it's rather like Mordor!"
As thinking had never been his favourite pastime, Anguelen was not surprised by his own inability to have figured this out. It did make sense, though. The lifeless ground surrounded the tower, throwing a dry, mighty shadow towards the far north, like fingers reaching for something longed for. So the power of the Dark Lord stayed with this world still, marred this world still!
"Is this how Mordor is going to look like, then?"
"Oh, it's much worse. It was dead before, but I heard there were some earthquakes near the end of the war and everything." Grishtakh explained.
"Yeah! Mordor really isn't looking very good at the moment, I hear!" parroted Ghâshsag, demonstrating his unnerving ability to skip merrily with a hangover and a backpack.
Krazum had been stumbling along with a dull look in his eyes until that point. Hearing the word 'Mordor' with such adjectives accompanying it slapped him awake for a while, and he looked almost physically pained by the sensation. "Then why are we going there?"
With his mouth hanging open as though words were about to jump out of it against his will, Thraknash looked at Sharrásh for help from one who knew how to deal with abnormal stupidity. Sharrásh complied for once.
"You wanted to." He coughed, unused to talking so much. "The Black Land is not the way it was before the war."
Krazum considered this, his eyes again dull and hazy as though they were staring into another time and place. As the wheels began to turn in his head, his brain finally spewed out a more recent memory of his beloved home and with it, embarrassment that quickly turned into anger. "I knew that!" he snapped, his shoulders stiff and his cheeks a slightly darker shade of greyish-green than usual.
Thraknash quietly contemplated the usefulness of dragging along someone who probably couldn't be trusted to remember his own name when the mood took him. Luckily for Krazum, the Uruk's logical conclusion was that were he to get rid of Krazum, he would also have to boot all the other incompetents and fucked up individuals in the group, and that would leave only Anguelen as his company. As pleasant as it sounded, he figured that going to Mordor with so little manpower would be a clear invitation for a sword to the torso. Looking almost constipated with annoyance, Thraknash tried to convince himself that Krazum wasn't actually all that bad, that he had useful skills like playing around with noxious herbs and being good at making and using weapons that he never really did use any more because he had some sort of blasted hang-up about seeing blood; that his constant fits of rage stemming from the aforementioned hang-up or another one of his many inadequacies weren't really all that mind-flayingly annoying, that he would one day wake up and stop talking about goddamn fucking Commander Grilták like the world still revolved round his cock from beyond the grave. Thraknash found that he simply had to stop thinking about how not-all-that-bad a bloke Krazum really was as it was making him even less willing to keep him around.
And the land, oh the land. Who could not have been sick of the blazing monotony of the barren landscape? The older Thraknash got, the less excited he found himself getting about the prospect of living in an oh-so-evil dead environment. Tortured earth, skulls on pikes, trees twisted in agony and defiled rivers always seemed so awe-inspiring when one had just been pulled out of the mudpit, but when one had had the chance to live a little longer, to mature a bit and see the world...
He hadn't even noticed how fast he had been marching before he suddenly realised the ground had turned slightly softer under his boots. The grass didn't look remarkably alive, but at least it was there and in the distance, it was a tone of green shocking after so much grey and brown and black. Thraknash squinted his eyes, his sinuses aching at the smell of life crawling into his nostrils like tiny little centipedes, and it took him a little while to notice that Anguelen was trying to talk to him.
"We're near the border now, Thraknash." Was that really apprehension in the Elf's voice? "I can feel it. Thought it was just some more of Father's crap, but I can feel the end of my land approach..."
Elves, Thraknash thought. Elves and their weird little feelings. Would an Elf really follow him to Mordor - if he even decided to go all the way there, himself? This Mordor-worship even Krazum still displayed had once been important to him too, but he had been new then. So new and so full of bloodlust. His traits had served him well in the war and in the mountains after the end of the war and would serve him well for the rest of his life. The difference Thraknash now saw in himself was that he was not at all eager to serve these days. No more skulls on the pikes of Mordor under somebody else's command, no longer dealing and seeking death on the battlefield in someone else's war. That was no longer what he wanted. He wanted to have some more sex.
"I'm getting randy," he muttered, a dirty grin splitting his leathery cheeks.
Anguelen heard, of course, how could he not with those pointy ears of his - and didn't he look dirty as well, smirking like that! "You and I both," said the Elf, clearly glad. "Let's see what I can do about it later, hmm?"
Thraknash bent down a little and took a quick lick at his ear. A thoroughly pleased look somehow managed to fill Anguelen's entire being instead of just his face.
"That spot over there, the one with a few trees and some rocks! We're staying there for a while!" he shouted, looking over his shoulder to make sure everyone had heard him.
"We're beginning to form a travelling pattern of our own now, has anyone else noticed?" asked Ghâshsag, grinning.
Elrohir was making a new arrow, dark with fury. To think that the so-called prince had the nerve to keep him any longer in the company of those vile creatures. To think that even with his originally noble heritage, he spared so little thought for the pain of those who had been wounded by their evil.
The prince in question did something indecent to one of the Orcs - never mind which one, they all had the same obnoxious features to him - and Elrohir's knife slipped in outrage.
Reliable as ever, a stream of curses could be heard where Krazum was hunched over his bag. "Be careful with that, damn you!"
The wound was by no means deep, but Ghâshsag squeaked as though it were the ghastliest thing he had ever seen. "Oh dear! That really looks rather bad; I've never seen so much blood come from one finger!"
"Don't you start..." Krazum got up, weighing a pestle in his hand.
"I say!" Grishtakh said. "It is as though that poor fellow might bleed to death!"
Krazum wavered. He looked at the tiny wound with worry in his eyes, but saw only a few unthreatening drops fall from it before Elrohir wrapped a piece of clean cloth around it. With a determined, humourless grin on his face, he turned to the Moria brats. The pestle felt so heavy and so ready in his hand...
Thraknash, as if having decided that he could allow himself an odd fit of immaturity after his little talk with Eadhelm, started playing along as well. "It is certainly gruesome! I'm afraid he's going to lose that finger, what's left of that bone would not support the weight of a fly!"
The mental image of damaged bones and crushed body parts overwhelmed Krazum like a river of blood. He held the pestle in a death-grip even as he shuddered mightily against the incoming assault of nausea, finally dropping his weapon and striding towards a lone tree with as much dignity as his state of mind allowed. It poured out of him along with his breakfast.
"If you weren't three against one and bigger than me..." Gruzlak growled.
"Oh come on, it'll just build his character. He should..." Ghâshsag promptly stopped talking when the ground suddenly disappeared from beneath his feet and there was a strange tightening around his neck. He regretted not having done something about that strap of leather sticking out from his armour, but then he saw a pair of red eyes glowering at him and thought no more.
"You're right, for once." Krazum wiped a spot of bile off his chin ever so slowly, his character or possibly something even more sinister building almost visibly inside him. His free hand then disappeared beneath Ghâshsag's line of sight and returned with a knife that had a strange smell on it. "I'm so, so sick of you little ratfucking snaga piles of shit..."
"Umm, better being violently sick of us than being violently sick over some little wound, eh?" Grishtakh quipped, taking a few hasty steps backwards.
"Be quiet."
"But think of your sensitive stomach - you wouldn't want to see me bleed, would you?" Looking slightly oxygen-deprived, Ghâshsag tried to squirm mid-air and got a warning jab near his belly.
"My stomach is empty already. Much like yours will be when I slice it open with this."
"Eh, leave him alone," Thraknash called, starting a campfire.
"I wouldn't talk at all if I were you, Thraknash." Krazum turned his head to look at the Uruk; Ghâshsag used the opportunity to silently gasp for air in the stench of vomit still lingering on the bigger (and how much bigger he seemed at the moment!) Orc's breath. "I'd just keep very, very quiet and hope I wouldn't get gutted as well."
Thraknash looked amused. "So you'd attack me, would you, weakling?"
"This site will be stained black with your filthy blood before the sun sets!" Krazum screamed at him, pushing the knife harder against the goblin in his grip. Ghâshsag went absolutely still, grateful for the rusty metal standing between the blade and his flesh.
There were familiar, slow steps grating the sand, coming closer to them. Ghâshsag nearly sighed with relief, trying to see his mate without turning his head. Said mate looked at the knife without an expression on his face, then at Krazum.
"Don't kill him," Sharrásh finally said, "or the other small one." He thought awhile. "The Uruk's fate matters not to me."
"Don't... kill... how much longer do you think I'm going to take their fucking cheek, you mute git? Any other Orc would've had them for breakfast after the first flippant remark, and I am bloody well going to end this right here and..."
The shock of being touched shut him up right away. It was not like he hadn't been touched before, it was just that this time it wasn't about the familiar pain of being punched in a fight or the vague pleasure of rough groping mid-rut; Sharrásh's hand was upon Krazum's head, light and non-threatening, before sliding down his greasy hair in a way that made no sense to him. When Sharrásh raised his hand to do it again, Krazum closed his mouth and stiffened his shoulders, only able to stare back with wide, alarmed eyes.
"There, there," Sharrásh whispered. "There, there."
Ghâshsag found himself on firm ground again. He looked at Krazum's slightly quivering form and began to back off slowly and quietly, hoping for a safe escape. Fortunately for him, even the fact that he backed right into Grishtakh and fell flat on his arse did not attract Krazum's attention enough to rouse his ire again. It did, however, make him twitch out of his frightened stupor and recoil from the comforting hand. Looking intensely paranoid with his wild eyes and tightly closed mouth, he sat down, pulled his knees up to his chest and was silent. Helpless to do anything else, Gruzlak carefully took the knife from him and put it in the bag.
"I... This is too much, this is not something for an Elf to see." Legolas took his belongings and stood up, startling everybody who had forgotten he was still with this world. "I hoped that you would, as one of my kin, see our plight and release us - not force us to walk with your sickening companions any longer than necessary. I implore you, for decency's sake, just tell us which direction to go to and we shall take our leave of you."
Anguelen blinked at him. "I was wondering why you kept following us. Eh, it's easy to get out, just walk there..." he pointed at what he was pretty sure was east, "or any other direction except the one we came from. I mean, really."
"This land confuses those who wander into it," Sharrásh reminded.
"So I've heard, but the border is right there! See how the dead land stops right over there?"
"Then we shall go," Elladan grumbled, picking up his things as well. His brother followed suit, as did Gimli. "We would thank you for your meagre advice, but anger is still too close to our hearts."
"I don't mind," Anguelen said, watching the strangers go with much haste and huffing.
"Well, I didn't want them to stay, anyway! Elves stink!" Grishtakh said rather loudly. There was a sudden movement in the distance, and an arrow landed neatly between his legs where he sat. It quivered silently, as if to remind him how very close it had come to giving him a rather radical piercing. Grishtakh sat very still for a few seconds, staring at the ground. When he was finally able to look up, his eyes were nearly twice as large as usual. "That was quite a scare," he said with a hollow voice. "I think I need to take a piss." He got up shakily and hobbled to the tree with now vomit-soiled roots so he wouldn't have to leak all over his sitting spot.
"Somebody's been dipped into Grumblewhine a bit too many times as a bratling," Anguelen observed, looking at the retreating Elves.
"It's Brandywine," Eldehto muttered without any hope of not being ignored.
"By the way, thank you for helping us get rid of them," Anguelen said to Krazum. "However, you do realise that if you were to maim my lover like you threatened to do, you would have to take his place as compensation?"
"What? I will not have it off with an Elf!" Krazum yelled, returning to life already. "I'd sooner do it with a pig!"
"But Krazum," said Thraknash, infuriatingly calm. "You don't like Uruks or Moria-Orcs either, and aren't those the only ones you've had for lovers?"
"What the fuck are you talking about, there were proper Orcs at the forge when I was still a forge-sla..." Krazum stopped abruptly, thinking back on Thraknash's words. He looked around wildly. "And one Moria brat won't make much of a difference among a bunch of decent Orcs! What sort of thing is this to talk about, anyway..."
"But Krazum, mate," Thraknash continued, not masking his amusement very well, "what do you call Grilták, then?"
Krazum swallowed. "...what?"
"If there's really just one unacceptable Orc - Gutbrúg, that is - among all the decent ones you've had, then what about Grilták? Did he not fuck you?"
"You're not making sense," Krazum said, and his eyes had never been shiftier.
"If you hate the Uruk-hai that much, why have you spent the last three years pining over one?"
"...shut up. Really, shut up. You don't even know what you're talking about."
"I was wrenched out of the same mudpit in the northwest as he was, Krazum." Thraknash was definitely smirking then. "A mudpit for breeding Uruk-hai. Uruk-hai like me and him."
"Shut it. SHUT IT."
Thraknash coughed, and it sounded suspiciously like 'uruk'.
"I'm not listening, see..." Krazum jammed his fingers into his ears, "Sauron had an evil ring..."
"Oh, I remember that song. Quite popular it was when the war ended - especially among us Uruk-hai!"
"...IT WAS WROUGHT OF GOLD!"
"And no matter how pretty, it was dark and cold," Burzum finished, a moist twinkle of definite emotion in the corner of his eye. "...I want to go back to Our Lord of Darkness."
Krazum either couldn't remember any more songs or then he didn't have the voice for singing them; either way, he was content to sit still with his fingers in his ears while Thraknash stoked the fire and the other Orcs watched the proceedings eagerly, hoping for some more drama and fighting. Gutbrúg, with his indifferent disposition towards the late commander, decided to keep quiet and not provide his friends with any. He threw an occasional curious glance at Krazum, but the redhead barely seemed ready to take his fingers out, much less take part in any intelligent (as intelligent as they ever got with Gutbrúg, at any rate) discussions.
"Well now, lads," Anguelen started, coughing. "That was certainly interesting, but I could use a light meal right now."
"Me too. In fact, I think I know just the Orc to cook us something," Thraknash drawled. He looked at Krazum with a grin that would have been infuriating to look at had the Orc been looking back at him.
Never taking his eyes off the Uruk, Gruzlak leaned over to Krazum and shook his shoulder apprehensively. Krazum opened his eyes and, upon seeing just his little friend, unstopped his ears as well. Gruzlak nodded nervously in Thraknash's direction.
"Oh Kraaazuum," called the Uruk. "I just came up with something useful for you to do."
"Really."
"Oh yes. You see, the meat we took with us needs cooking..."
It was fury that Krazum felt then, desperate fury. "You cannot be serious."
"...and I thought to myself, why not give the task to the one of us who knows the most about herbs and spices?"
"You don't even eat cooked meat, you great pillock!"
Thraknash spread his arms, shrugging. "There's always a first time for everything."
Krazum looked at him with the kind of smouldering dislike that could turn into burning hatred with just a little bit more stoking. Then his eyes narrowed as his lips formed a cold smile.
"But of course I'll cook your meat, Chieftain," he said slowly, getting up to find said meat in one of the backpacks. He soon fished it out along with a rough-looking frying pan, which he expertly twirled in the air. "Just let me get my... spices."
"And by the way, Krazum..." Thraknash's smile turned almost unbearable. "You're eating it, too."
The hatred was in the Orc's eyes then, eating through his short-lived satisfaction like a swarm of locusts that turned upon each other after being done with their main course. As he contemplated the many ways in which to kill someone without letting his blood, Gutbrúg lazily picked up some small stones and threw them at the smirking Uruk.
"Oi, go a little easier on him," he called. "If only for the sake of my chances at getting laid, you know?"
"Why thank you." Krazum sat down cross-legged by the fire, glowering at the world in general. "Just what I needed, a Moria-goblin defending me against a bloody Uruk..."
Gutbrúg chuckled quietly enough to not provoke his anger any more. The other goblins soon lost interest when it looked like there would be no more entertainment to be had from other people's affairs and so they turned to their own business, chattering and bickering (and in Sharrásh's case, not saying a whole lot). Gruzlak joined them soon, relieved that Krazum no longer seemed to be in a fighting mood. Even Eldehto emerged from his sullen stupor, alerted by the smell of cooking meat. He looked at the pan unhappily.
"Is that all we're having for breakfast?"
Anguelen looked up from his fantastic idea of trying to get Thraknash off without being too obvious about it to his travelling companions. "Eh?"
"It's just meat again, isn't it?"
"So it seems, Eldehto." Anguelen slipped his hand under Thraknash's leather tunic as inconspicuously as possible.
"Why do we always have to have meat? I am getting sick of meat! I want to have some fruits or nuts for a change!"
"Throw yourself in, then!" Krazum yelled abruptly. He looked like he would have liked to say more things, possibly concerning the Elf's intellectual capacity and parentage, but simply ground his teeth together in a horrible grimace of wrath.
Eldehto seemed cautious for a few fleeting seconds, but quickly decided that Krazum posed no great threat to his well-being and turned his back to the campfire with a childish sulk. Anguelen stared at him for a while with a very strained expression on his face, as if wanting to double over with laughter if only it didn't pose a bit of a threat to his semi-secret endeavours with Thraknash. He was content to shake with voiceless giggling against the Uruk's shoulder before being able to turn his attention back to more pressing matters.