Chapter Seven: Sun, Grass, Rohirrim

A/N: More dialogue from The Two Towers.

They ran for hours: over hill and dale, across the broad green land. The hobbits were now directly in front of Amy and Azrat, who had moved up into the line, struggling to keep the exhausting speed that Amy herself found difficult to maintain. Skaikûr had procured a whip and ran just ahead of Amy and Azrat, whipping the hobbits whenever their pace slackened or they stumbled. Every so often one of the hobbits tripped and fell; when one did, Amy tried to be the first one to hoist him to his feet again. She knew she couldn't cuddle them, so carrying one of them for a few miles whenever she could seemed to be the best effort she could make to ease their suffering. It certainly made her feel a little better about her role in the situation.

When the opportunity presented itself, she talked quietly with Azrat. Uglúk had given her a foul look when she had returned to the line; she could tell he wasn't happy with the attention she was getting from Azrat: attention which should be focused solely on his goal of getting the hobbits to Isengard.

So they talked softly, with their heads close together, often running right alongside each other. Amy learned a great deal about from her companion; for instance, why orcs ate human flesh, and found it so tasty ("Men eat sheep an' cow, but it's just not right for them to eat each other. Now, we're not Men; it's alright for us to eat them, you see: they're sort of like our cattle. Big, nasty cattle with weapons, but still, a food source. An' most of them eat so well, you can taste it in them when you eat them. For example, I ate a noble Whiteskin the other day; I swear, I tasted mead in 'im, and a good deal of prime livestock. Delicious."), and why many orcs continued to serve the power of the Hand or Eye, ever after noting the peril it put them in ("A roof over our heads, clothes on our backs, and food in our bellies: that's what Sharkey provides me with. Freedom may be nice, but it's a luxury when the entire world wants to kill you, just because your species is apt to so-called 'wicked deeds'. Sharkey won't kill us for being us; he'll just enslave us. As I say, Life in any form is better than Death."). He taught her the best way to prepare a man's heart and lungs, which herb made the best painkiller to ease the passage when gangrene set in, and how to check a fallen comrade for intestinal piercing after said comrade had sustained an arrow to the gut. The hours crawled by as they ran, though to Amy, the time she spent talking to Azrat seemed to go by far too quickly.

At dawn they halted at the banks of a narrow river. On the lower slopes ahead lay a forest, but it was merely a blurb in the distance from where they stood.

Amy stumbled off in the direction of the river as angry voices began to sound in the large group of orcs. The orcs of Amy's stature seemed to be quarreling with Uglúk's group, but she didn't care. Kneeling beside the bank, she cupped her clawed hands together and drew a handful of water, which she imbibed greedily, sighing audibly as the crisp, cold fluid bit sharply at the inside of her aching throat. Again and again, she raised her corroded hands to her parched lips, until her thirst was slaked; then, she returned quietly to the group to avoid unwanted attention.

As was his wont, Uglúk was yelling: this time, at the smaller orcs.

"Off you go!" he said, his voice strained and quivering with anger. "And quick, before I knock a few more heads off, to put some sense into others." Harsh words filled the air as the group began to jostle, the smaller orcs trying to dislodge themselves from the larger part of the group, before taking off at a fantastic pace towards the mountains which loomed in the distance, their snow-capped peaks dappled with gold and soft pink light from the rising sun. Only a few of her kind lingered, unwavering.

"Well?" Uglúk muttered, looking to the orcs that remained, Amy among them. If she didn't know any better, she would have sworn she heard a note of weariness and surrender in his voice, like a mother who has grown too fed up with her naughty children to care anymore; but, if she did, it was only for an instant.

One orc shook his head. "Sharkey has more to offer for our efforts; we'll stay."

"He'll give you something, all right. Now we'll deal with Grishnákh." He stopped speaking as some unsteady glances among the larger orcs turned southward, and sighed.

"I know," he said. "The horse-boys have gotten wind of us. But," he said, and here he turned to face another orc, "that's all your stinkin' fault, Snaga. You scouts ought to have your brains dashed out; you're obviously not using them. No matter; we are the fighters, and we'll feast on horseflesh yet, or something better." Amy's stomach turned at the thought of eating horse, as it had during any and all conversations of any meat other than beef.

She turned her face slightly so that she looked eastward, catching a brief glimpse of the sun she loved, even though her face began to burn almost immediately. She saw why some of the orcs had been pointing east. There was a band of orcs coming towards their party from the East, maybe forty or so; and on each of their shields, a red eye glared. Finally, she could take the sun no longer, and, hissing at her body's weakness in a very orc-like fashion, she moved behind Azrat. He patted her lightly on the arm, expressing his sympathy.

"I hate this stupid sunlight," she muttered.

"I know," he responded. "But, if we ever make it to the forest, there'll be plenty of shade. You won't have to hide any longer."

"Where did those others come from?" she asked softly, indicating Grishnákh's host.

"Eh? They left days ago, after a fight over the prisoners."

Why am I not surprised?

"Why have they come back?" Azrat said, mostly to himself; Amy heard a note of suspicion in his voice.

"What's wrong?" she asked.

"They're orcs from the Black Land; see the eyes on their shields? They ran off when Uglúk refused to let them eat the prisoners, just before we started this idiot race, but not before lopping poor Thurkdish's head off. If you ask me, they're only coming back because they're hungry again. Still, I'd like to see them try to cut down a meal among us. It's the little ones they go after, the ones who can't defend themselves so well, and they've all scampered." Behind him, Amy whimpered.

I don't want to be eaten alive by orcs. I don't want to be eaten alive by orcs…

"Eh? What's huh? Oh, Grûsbálk! I must have rocks inside my skull." Azrat grabbed her right hand and squeezed it reassuringly. "Don't make such sounds! No one will be eating you as long as I'm still alive and can wield my sword," he said, running his hand softly over the top of her head, which was covered by coarse clumps of long, black hair, in a comforting gesture. Amy smiled uneasily as her face grew warm. She turned her face away and rubbed the bridge of her nose, willing her face to stop growing red and her heart to stop speeding up.

What the hell is wrong with me? I must be getting a little sick. I haven't eaten since I got here. But…ugh, I just COULDN'T eat a lump of Boromir. That's vile…I wonder if they have something I could eat nearby? Wild strawberries or something. Are strawberries in season now? Mmmm…strawberries with sugar…

"Grûsbálk, what are you doing? Come on, let's go!"

Amy shook her head suddenly. Azrat was standing next to her with an odd expression on his face and his hand on her shoulder. He had been about to shake it to get her attention. Sam had been slung over his shoulder, and the hobbit was struggling angrily, kicking his feet against Azrat's back, who didn't seem to notice. The other orcs were jostling past them; they were on the move again, but there were angry murmurs among the orcs: some were muttering "Nazgûl, Nazgûl…" and others were muttering about "Dirty Whiteskins."

"We're off," he said, and she resigned herself to lope contently next to him, her perk restored by the brief rest, her cheer restored by the residual feeling of his hands in her hair.

*

Hours later, the sun had climbed high into the sky, baking the green grasslands and sending waves of heat rolling up into the sky. Raptors lazily soared overhead, giving Amy a sense of foreboding. Or, what would have been foreboding, had she not been suffering from acute heat exhaustion which was rapidly working its way into heat stroke. The sun was beating heavily on her thick black hair; sweat was trickling down her face in little rivulets. She had begun to take off some of her armor at one point in order to lighten her burden, but Azrat stopped her, saying that if they did not make it to the forest before the Whiteskins attacked, she'd want it dearly.

It was not her finest hour. Her orc's body wasn't cut out for the harsh sunlight and endless running while wearing heavy armor; her human mind was rapidly losing the will to go on. As far as she could see, she was going to die in this horrible place, alone and confused; what was the point of exhausting herself further? But every time she tried to slow down, Azrat would reach out a clawed hand, grab her wrist gently, and convince her to go on, even if just for a little while.

Panting and gasping, Amy thought of the cool water, now hours gone and miles behind her, and she wished she had savored it more. She raised her forearm to her head and wiped the sweat from her brow for the one hundredth time in as many minutes, only to bring her damp forearm to her mouth to lick off every bit of moisture she could. Had she been more aware, she would have realized what she was doing was disgusting, but she was desperate, and hey, water was water to her.

"Maggots!" Uglúk called ahead to the Northerners who had left at dawn; the party had reached them not long ago. "You're cooked!"

I'm cookin' alright, Amy thought. Baste me and serve me with some vegetables; I'm done for.

"The Whiteskins will catch you and eat you," he jeered. "They're coming!"

No, they're not, you stupid thing. Shut your ugly mug, Amy thought miserably, mopping her face again.

But she jerked her head up when a piercing cry came from the ranks of the orcs whom they had passed. Cries of "Whiteskins! Whiteskins!" and "Horsemen!" rang through the air. The orcs around her began to run with a terrific speed, jostling past her, desperate to get away. She stumbled; Azrat grabbed her arm.

"You've picked the worst time to need a rest, Grûsbálk. They've come. The Whiteskins have come. Come on. We've got to make a run for the forest."

Amy gasped feebly, trying to tell Azrat how tired she was, and hot, and weak; but she couldn't even push a plea for help past her dry and dusty lips. The sounds of hooves and yelling men were beginning to be heard in the distance. The orcs were panicking; most of them were pushing past Azrat and Amy, desperate to escape to the forest. No one gave a thought to the two orcs crouched on the ground.

Amy looked up at Azrat balefully and tried to stand up straight, but she could not. She fell to her knees and gasped, "Go. For the love of God, save yourself."

Azrat hesitated for a moment, looking at the rapidly approaching horsemen. Then he looked back to Amy and grasped her forearms.

"No."

Before she could react, he had grabbed her with his strong arms and slung her over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes, albeit a large, armored, protesting sack. He turned towards the forest in the distance and began to sprint with the surreal speed with which his race had been endowed, speed he had hidden so that he could run beside Amy.

Amy lifted her sweat-streaked head and craned her neck to move her long, damp hair out of her face. She saw, as if in an alcohol-induced stupor, a line of tall figures on proud gray horses, moving like a ripple over water towards the fleeing orcs, still in the distance, but visible to her nonetheless. They held weapons of war: spears and swords and bows nocked with arrows with long shafts. Their long coats of mail and helmets gleamed in the hot sunlight, and the hooves of their steeds, pounding over the green earth, was like the rolling of thunder in the distance before a storm.

Amy dropped her head against Azrat's back and wept.


Coming Up: The orcs are surrounded. More talking. Amy messes with canon a wee bit more.