A/N: I'm so sorry about chapter three. It's so short! So to make it up to you, I'm writing this. (All Reviews accepted. ^_^)
Deynak woke up suddenly. /What the hell! Why in the name of all good things were the crew and I asleep!/ Then he remembered that he had called a halt the night before so that the crew would be able to venture farther away from the choking dust pit that was Mordor. He woke up the rest of the crew and briefed them on his current plan of action. They would run westward in the hopes that they would be able to avoid orc patrols near the mountains. After that they would journey over the mountains in as little time as possible and from there… no one knew. Seeing as they had no provisions they went without food that morning, they really didn't notice it however seeing as how when they had been given food it hadn't been much. As they progressed forward they came to realize that if they were to run as fast as they could not worrying about being seen they would cover much more ground than before. So, to keep spirits up, they began races to see how much ground they could cover in a short period of time. Deynak almost always emerged as the winner and Ferdin almost always last. It was ten o' clock before anyone saw them and even then they had covered almost fifteen miles. It was a small orc patrol of nine that spotted them first giving up a howl to the wind before attacking their targets. Ferdin was the first to spot them calling to his friends before readying his axe. Gareth and Sedlik drew their swords and stood beside Ferdin as Cuthalion and Deynak readied their bows. As two more orc patrols of about equal size came over the hill the first patrol had already hit the small crew.
Deynak and Cuthalion loosed their arrows taking down two, Ferdin disembowled a third while Sedlik stabbed another through the knee and Gareth decapitated a fifth. The crew began to run with Deynak and Cuthalion in the rear, firing off shafts in to the oncoming horde of orcs.
At the first chance they'd had in four hours the crew stopped and rested. As they sat opening a half empty flask of water Deynak began planning again. "Well now that we know the approximate layout of their troop positions we can make an educated guess as to what our best chance of escape will be. I think if we go to our right we'll probably be able to at least get to the mountains before nightfall. However if there are no more incidents along the way we could probably reach the summit be about noon tomorrow." "And if there are 'incidents' along the way how long then?" asked Ferdin. It was a valid question and Deynak could only stab at the answer. " I'd say around midnight tomorrow is when we could reach it. Then we could probably make it to the other side and into the forest two to three days from now." As they drank and ate the one loaf of bread that they had brought they were unaware of what might be happening to the other group.
Said group had actually set out earlier than Deynak's. Leaving before the sun came up they had covered twice the ground that the others had. Now they were being chased by a large group of orc patrols. Having more people than the other group had, they had initially repulsed the attacks of the orcs, but the orcs having reinforcements, had been able to drive the escapees back and finally forced them to run. As the crew did run they fired arrows into the lead runners of the patrol, taking stands on top of hillocks and in the valleys behind the hillocks. The patrols were losing orcs and now they were beyond hope of reinforcements. As the orcs charged up a hill helter-skelter the crew loosed more shafts into them. Edrahil, who was in command of the crew took a body count on the patrols. Twenty in all, scratch that twelve. Edrahil decided he could take the risk of standing and fighting, which the dwarves in his group had been begging to do all this time. Drawing his scimitar and beckoning the others to do likewise Edrahil charged down the slope slashing and stabbing at the orcs, taking down one by ripping into its lungs; in the great woosh of air that escaped the orc's lungs, it toppled backwards hitting the ground with a thud. Edrahil was soon accompanied by Orenki and Numli as well as Jehrong and Elemire the rest fired a volley of arrows into the remaining orcs scattering them and taking down four. The rest tried running only to be shot from close range.
Numli had been hurt when an unarmed orc tried to claw his eyes out. The orc had been disembowled but not before gashing his left eye. They had time on their side for the moment so they tried to help him as well as they could before being forced to press on.
(This is where Chapter 3 picks up which is why I'm ending this interlude here. However in Chapter 4 I'll go into more detail about the crossing of the mountains.) ^_^