On second thought, let's not go with the story split. It is a silly idea. (No, seriously, sorry for all this nonsense! I won't do it again.) Meanwhile, I've drawn some more pictures of our "heroes" that you can find through my profile.


They had spent two thankfully uneventful days crossing the defile of Andrath and managed to remain unseen under cover of darkness. However, Grishtakh and Gutbrúg had taken this golden opportunity to spend the whole time trying to come up with clever puns related to the many meanings of the word "defile", and the others weren't sure which was more irritating: the fact that they did so, or the fact that they hadn't managed to come up with anything in two whole days. Krazum had taken to clutching the hilt of his sword with a look of longing for days long lost, and it was indeed this unhealthiness that had finally brought the stupidity to an end. For where Thraknash's threats and Krazum's hatred had failed, a particularly brutal glare from little Gruzlak had succeeded in shutting up the two goblins, and there once more seemed to be some hope in this despair-stained world.

Until they made it to the edge of what Sharrásh had identified as the southern part of Chetwood, that is.

"Another forest," Burzum said with a dead voice when he saw the silent trees rise against the darkness of the night.

"Well, what can you do," Ghâshsag said in a more diplomatic tone, but the look in his eyes was rather defeated as his gaze swept over the small forest and ended up in the shadow of the village far in the north that they had no business entering.

"Another forest!" Anguelen said, squeezing Thraknash's hand harder with annoyance.

"We'll get through this one as well," assured Thraknash, squeezing back even as the Elf's uncontrolled strength made his eyes water.

"Another fucking forest!" Krazum said with a tone that bordered on hysteria. Gruzlak said nothing, but the alarmed look he gave to Krazum was enough to at least prevent a longer outburst.

"That's enough grumbling for now. Going through forests is safer here," Moglurz said quickly. The others could tell he was getting irritable by the lack of the usually ubiquitous 'lads' at the end of the sentence.

"Still, I remember the way we came to the mountains after the war," Gutbrúg dared to muse as they walked into the forest. "Far less populated and far less forested, wasn't it?"

Moglurz nodded, managing to control his impatience despite this interruption. "The north had been empty for quite some time back then. I expect it won't be so empty for long now." If anyone had been anticipating another lesson on the possible future of these lands (and only Eldehto eagerly looked forward to such things), Moglurz spared them for now. Instead, his gaze turned inwards and he seemed to be calculating something. "It will be a long journey from here," he muttered, "and there's a different scent to this place..."

Grishtakh grinned eagerly. "Because this is a normal forest? Because there's food to be had here?"

Already more cheerful, Moglurz grinned back. "I do believe so, lad! Perhaps no ripe berries yet, but meat..." An ancient bloodthirsty gleam lit the old Orc's eyes for a moment as his nostrils twitched at the scents of the forest. "Yes, meat. I haven't hunted in a while, myself, but the blood of a fresh kill... ah, the taste still lingers."

Krazum grunted. "Can we make a fire here? I'm not eating mine raw."

For a long moment, Moglurz eyed the darkened way ahead silently. Some of the more serious travellers fell silent as well and observed their surroundings to help Moglurz. Others stood around more uselessly, but at least they knew better than to make any racket. This forest seemed smaller and friendlier than the old one, which was quite strange when the two forests were not separated by a very vast stretch of land. An amusing thought came to Ghâshsag of a pair of twins like day and night, and he had to wonder which twin was the good one from an Orkish point of view.

"It feels safe for us," said Moglurz at last, as if to offer an answer to the goblin's philosophical ponderings. "I see, hear or smell no signs of watchers for now, but we must scout ahead, even in a small forest like this."

"Perhaps..." Eldehto quickly closed his mouth, almost in disbelief over the fact that he was already turning to helping the Orcs he travelled with. He had certainly been non-belligerent with them for a while now, but he hadn't expected to volunteer so quickly to help. And then, as the Orcs turned to look at him with expectation, his need to be useful easily overpowered his hesitation. "Perhaps I could do that. Be... being an Elf and all."

Anguelen raised an eyebrow, but for once not to be unpleasant. "Will the trees be happy to tell you what they know when you ask on behalf of Orcs, what do you think?"

"We're only here to pass through peacefully and find some food, aren't we?" Eldehto asked uncertainly. "Should I try it?"

"Better you than me. I doubt they'll speak to me," Anguelen said, and the lack of sadness he expressed over this somehow made Eldehto even sadder. The younger Elf merely nodded and turned around to walk into the woods, softly touching the trunks of the trees as he went.

"I hope for easy game and fresh meat in my mouth," Sharrásh said, watching the Elf go. "Nuts and seeds won't be enough to fill me here."

The others gave the ancient Orc cautious glances to figure out if it was all right to laugh. When Sharrásh showed no signs whatsoever of even realising that his words might be interpreted in more ways than one, all but Anguelen - who broke into a shameless grin - awkwardly looked to Moglurz for more instructions.

"So, Krazum," said Moglurz, he in turn turning to the red-haired Orc, "would you still use your bow to get us a nice rabbit or two?"

Krazum nodded. "As long as someone else deals with them when they're dead and bloody." He seemed to consider something for a moment and put his hand on Gruzlak's shoulder. "You'll have to stay behind, little one."

"What? Why?" demanded Thraknash, all offended all of a sudden. "You're suddenly not taking him on a hunting trip just because everyone knows he's a child? Is this your way of making sure he grows up strong?"

Taking a deep, hateful breath, Krazum directed the glare ever hiding under his surface at his foe. "What, Uruk?"

"It's Thraknash! And he's not become any frailer in the last few days. There's no reason you shouldn't take him with you!"

Anguelen nodded. "Indeed. The first time I met him, he caught an Elf!"

Although he had been ready to escalate from mild annoyance to full wrath in the calm and collected manner so typical to him, Krazum now looked at Anguelen with, for the first time, something that was not quite distaste. He quickly turned his eyes down to Gruzlak to have an excuse to look pleased, and immediately his heart was filled with pride that overpowered everything else. "I know that. I know he's strong." He had to take a moment to recover from the surge of emotion, and the smile he gave to Gruzlak was full of warmth that he would never show to anyone else in the whole world. "And I'm asking him to stay behind to look after you lot. He's also clever, and you'll need someone with common sense."

Gruzlak, quite in vain, tried to look stoic in the face of all this praise. "I'm fine with this," he said, voice trembling.

As things could only get syrupier from there, and also because he was feeling rather abashed after his own outburst, Thraknash quickly interrupted the scene and began to organise a hunting trip. It did occur to him that they were no longer in the mountains and he was not the leader here, but as so often seemed to be the case, he had already opened his mouth and it was too late. Luckily it turned out that no one bothered to protest when it meant someone else taking responsibility for the practical stuff, so he thought about it for a moment and chose Gutbrúg and Burzum to be Krazum's carrion-bearers; out of everyone who had not pulled his weight in a while (even Burzum's appointed task of being a walking cloud of darkness meant nothing when they travelled at night), they were the least likely to fuck something up while doing something important like this.

"And don't forget to remove the innards and blood like you did last time," Thraknash said to Gutbrúg, somewhat depressed that he even had to mention this.

"I never," Gutbrúg said without a shred of shame even though he had just been reminded of having indeed done so before.

"I would never forget to bathe in the blood of my prey," muttered Burzum, fingering his now useless ring in his pocket.

"Stop playing with your bollocks there and come be useful with me," Gutbrúg replied with a jovial slap to Burzum's back.

Just as a shadow beyond shadow descended upon Burzum's countenance at this audacity, Eldehto returned from his reconnaissance trip from the deeper woods. "Well, I made contact," he said with a confused look on his often confused-looking face. "The trees wanted to know what I'm doing with a band of Orcs, and then what I'm doing with my life in general. I didn't quite understand that - I still don't, really - so then they asked if I'm all right in the head." Eldehto smiled shyly at this. "So sweet and caring they were, just like Daddy and Lord Elrond."

Anguelen and Thraknash exchanged a look.

"At any rate, they told me there are no others here now, and to be sure to take my rabble and weird brother with me from here as soon as I can, and that there's a deer not far from here over there." Eldehto pointed at north-east.

"That's it, then," Krazum said quickly before Eldehto could ramble on any longer. He summarily picked up his bow and arrows, gave Gutbrúg a hopeless look and Burzum a slightly more approving one, and led them into the woods.

Thraknash poked the top of Gruzlak's head like one might poke a small but deadly dragon. "So what are the rest of us to do now, great leader?"

"I'm not your leader," the tiny Orc answered coolly and slapped the Uruk's hand away without even looking at him. "You should be able to behave yourself by now without being told."

Pulling his hand back, Thraknash nevertheless found it hard not to annoy the little one some more. He had to have learned this from Moglurz; after all, it was not as though Thraknash could simply be naturally annoying, was it? "How can you be so serious? I thought you children were supposed to be playful or something."

Now Gruzlak finally looked at Thraknash with disappointment that somehow dug far deeper than his anger. Although the thought had certainly tickled the Uruk's subconscious for a while now, it suddenly consciously dawned on him that the tiny Orc probably didn't need any more weight on his shoulders with the way Krazum was sometimes, and that to him an irritating young Uruk counted as weight. In a fair world, Gruzlak would have been allowed to simply be a child and not worry about an Orc's decidedly unfair lot in life, but this was not a fair world, and Gruzlak couldn't be a child, or at least not simply. Thraknash felt ashamed, properly ashamed, and he had not the strength to stop himself from squirming.

"You're the one who's being childish, so you can go play somewhere if you can't calm down," Gruzlak said with firmness and authority far beyond his years.

This show of maturity that circumstances had forced on the little one only made Thraknash feel worse. He crossed his arms and almost immediately uncrossed them, scratched his ear, then the other ear, all the while looking anywhere but the eyes that stared. At least Krazum wasn't here to witness this. "Sorry," he squeaked.

Gruzlak raised his eyebrows, openly astonished. "What?"

Thraknash coughed loudly to make the following words sound quieter. "I said sorry!"

In the ponderous silence that dropped down on them with its full weight, Anguelen slipped his hand into Thraknash's. The Uruk could tell that the little Orc was still watching him, but he couldn't stand to take a look at what the others were doing. He thought he could hear a muffled giggle. "All right, since you understand now," Gruzlak finally said, sounding far less harsh. "You can still go play if you want."

"Well then!" Anguelen exclaimed before the situation could get any more awkward for his beloved Uruk. "Since we're alone in the woods here, Thraknash and I could take this opportunity to run off for a while to really be alone."

Moglurz smiled. "That's fine. I've had enough entertainment for now, watching our little Thraknash squirm."

"Well thank you," scoffed Thraknash with hollow bravado, still unable to look his mentor in the eye.

"Not only 'sorry', but 'thank you' as well!" Moglurz wiped his eyes. "You know, lad, I'm really starting to feel like I didn't do such a bad job teaching you some manners after all."

Although Anguelen was greatly amused by all this, he could perceive that Thraknash was really rather flustered by the whole situation. The way he grumbled at Moglurz that he was flustered enough as it was by the whole situation was a dead giveaway. The young Elf therefore squeezed the young Uruk's hand (carefully this time) to get his attention. "Let's leave it, then," he said, letting go as Thraknash turned to look at him gratefully. "This is a good forest for running in the dark. How would you like to hunt some Elf?"

Waiting just long enough to see a relieved grin break all over Thraknash's face, Anguelen dashed into the woods and soon disappeared out of sight. Moglurz watched Thraknash follow him before turning to address the remaining group. "So, lads, now that it's just us sensible ones..." Moglurz then noticed that Grishtakh was still present as well, but was far too polite to correct himself. "...yes. How about we consider our location some more and plan accordingly?"


Meanwhile, deeper in the woods, the hunting party had finally located the deer and found a spot where Krazum had enough room for a clean kill. While Burzum was too busy trying to stay quiet despite the giddy excitement of a nocturnal hunting trip under the moon, Gutbrúg could only stare at the redhead in wonder.

For a transformation, or a return to a former state, had come upon Krazum in this moment of silence. His eyes shone with a clear, bright red in the wan light of the moon, undaunted by the shadows that fell on him. There was purpose in every movement, and strength. So much strength.

As for Krazum, he could feel a shadow of a memory brush against the conscious part of his mind, but his senses were completely focused and ignored it. The forest was not familiar to him, but certain scents were shared between all forests of this type, and he could remember killing before, before things had gone sour for good. His breath went in and came out with utter calm now. His kill stood before him, in plain sight. His muscles remembered what to do; remembered everything that was needed here. It mattered not how he had learned all this and when, only that he knew how. He raised his bow and his arrow like he had done countless times before, the ghost of his first kill buried deep, deep, deep, and he drew the string...

The bow was of Elf-make and eerily silent, but that was not what had impressed Gutbrúg so. The goblin stared at Krazum's back with an open mouth; the muscles needed for drawing a bow worked with astounding ease even after all this idle time. There was nothing but power and confidence and danger in Krazum's posture, evidence of what he had been and still at times could be when he wasn't busy grovelling and being subservient to greater authorities or his own past. Krazum held the bow for a moment before shooting, but Gutbrúg was trying too hard not to drool to notice the kill that had actually brought them here. Krazum was still a bit too bony for his own good, but when he actually had his act together... oh rocky pits of Moria, his arse wasn't the only part of him that looked really, really nice.


In another part of the forest, Thraknash had caught Anguelen and pushed him into the soft moss under them. "So, Elf," he growled with the voice of his character from their earlier play, "did you think you could escape the long arm of the lawless?"

"Orc," replied Anguelen with a grin that gleamed white as dread and nightmares in the darkness of the night, "did you think I was escaping? I have you now right where I want, far away from your comrades."

"Oh, that's how you want to play, is it? Tell me then, pointy ears..." Thraknash loomed over Anguelen, strands of black hair falling on the Elf's pale face. "...can you take what you dish out?"

"I say to you... pointy ears..." Anguelen brushed hair out of Thraknash's eyes and behind an ear - that was indeed just as pointy as his own - with unexpected gentleness. "...do not dare hold back."


"It is quite risky, but we do have a long journey ahead of us. We'll have to ask your brother when he comes back." Moglurz eyed the map Ghâshsag had fashioned out of various needles with some help from Sharrásh. He pointed at a lone cone in the east past the green needles that represented Chetwood. "I'm still hoping we won't have to go through the marsh, but that depends on what you're able to find out, if the next part of our plan comes together. Are you sure you want to go with it?"

Eldehto nodded at Gruzlak and Moglurz. "The fewer the risks, the better; but we would also risk much if we continued without the preparations we can make here."

Moglurz smiled. "What a dependable lad you are. A few more of your like in our ranks and we could have won the war."

Eldehto smiled back, blanched a little as he realised just which war Moglurz was referring to, and then smiled again anyway because he had been deemed worthy. He wondered if he should put the feeling into words somehow, but was interrupted by the stumbling arrival of his brother and his Orkish lover. No matter: they had had quite enough time for a nice, constructive discussion and could well stop here for now.

"I'm glad I don't have to go hunting after this," Thraknash commented as his legs still wobbled a little. "I feel like I've been utterly obliterated."

"Really? That's funny, considering that I'm the one who got speared there," laughed Anguelen.

"Yes, well, but I'm the one who did all the hard work this time, so it's..." Thraknash frowned a little at the stomping coming from afar with careless haste. The forest had certainly been declared safe for them, but surely it was no excuse to trample around like a Mûmak with a bee up its arse? Taking a deep breath, knowing very well who would behave like that, Thraknash waited for Krazum to show up.

"Bloody... bloody!" Krazum gasped as he appeared, for once out of swearwords. He almost bumped into the Uruk, wrinkled his nose, and swiftly took a couple of steps back with a growl. "Well I'm glad somebody had fun tonight."

"Slaying fluffy animals didn't work out for you, then?" asked Thraknash.

"That part actually wasn't too bad with the deer so far away and all. It's just... it's that..." Krazum looked from Uruk to Elf with his teeth bared, as if trying to gather strength. His ears twitched as the companions Thraknash had assigned to him could be heard coming behind him. "Just look at him," Krazum said to the happy couple. "Look at Gutbrúg's damned crotch."

Gutbrúg stumbled into view soon after with a funny sway to his gait. Thraknash grimaced. "Do I have to? My eyes might catch something." And then, because the horror was right there, he had to look anyway. "...oh."

"Oh indeed," agreed Anguelen, sounding rather impressed.

When Thraknash looked at Krazum again, he found him staring back from beneath his furrowed brows. "I don't like this," Krazum said with a voice that was clear but quiet out of sheer discomfort.

"Oh Krazum, it's not because of the blood or anything," Gutbrúg gasped as he tried to move without chafing himself too much. "I'd just like to watch you shoot something again, you know? Wait, that came out wrong..."

Krazum squeezed his eyes shut. "I was a warrior in the Dark Lord's service. I was an arrow in his quiver, swift and deadly." With an angry shudder, he opened his eyes and glared at Thraknash. "You sent him out with me. At least deal with the dead deer so I can prepare it and have something to eat, for great fuck's sake." Then he stormed off to the rest of the band, easily leaving Gutbrúg behind.

Sighing a little as the last blessed dregs of sex-euphoria dribbled out of his pores, Thraknash waited for the last unhappy hunter to show up. Burzum was preceded by the sounds of his laboured breathing, and Thraknash found it easier to forgive his slowness when he saw the size of the deer Burzum had been forced to carry alone. It was also slung across his shoulders, and although the innards and blood had been mostly removed, Thraknash couldn't help but feel somewhat sorry for Burzum; he couldn't carry the deer any other way, and in this way he was forced to endure its opened stomach on his neck and shoulders. As if as an added insult to this injury, he also had a bag that dripped blood hanging off his belt, badly disturbing his balance.

"Bathe in the blood of your prey, did you?" Thraknash asked, not sure if he meant to tease or sympathise with the smaller Orc.

Burzum grunted in a way that was probably supposed to sound brave or whatever it was that he wanted to convey while remaining true to his unholy nature. "It smells a bit... different when it begins to dry," he panted, tightening his grip on the deer's legs.

Thraknash and Anguelen shared a glance. "Well then, shall we cut it up a little? Come, give me a hand," said Anguelen and went to grab the deer's hind legs. With a pause, and then a smile, Thraknash went to do the right thing.