Chapter 12 Reviews:
Hel – The fight was liked! ^.^ *does strange little dance* Yep – It's Grôltakh's intelligence that has kept him alive so long, whereas with Yutshrug, it's more to do his strength, 'friends' and luck, whilst with Ragnäkah… heck – who knows how he has managed to stay alive so long with his irascible nature?! Perhaps Grôltakh has been looking after him well. I thought that the trick Lèkfrêtz would play on Grôltakh would be kind of obvious, but I decided it would be better than the two giving each other a friendly slap on the back and walking off into the darkness, reminiscing about old times. : ) There isn't really another reason for why Lèkfrêtz is trying to trick Grôltakh, other than to possibly test him and see if he has become more intelligent, or if he will react differently than he expects. But really, Lèkfrêtz isn't as intelligent as Grôltakh and has a far more animalistic nature. Sometimes I worry that I am making the orcs more intelligent than Tolkien would have wanted, thus creating 'out-of-character' main characters.
A/N: Onto chapter 13! (Unlucky for some)
~Chapter 13~
Grôltakh knew he was close to the exit now; he could feel the fresh air and a wind from outside. After they had crossed this last flight of stairs, the bridge would be in sight. A good thing too, for Grôltakh did not know how much longer Lèkfrêtz and his troops would leave them alone for. The bridge came into sight, and his heart sank. The bridge was broken. They could not cross it. And as if to pressurise him even more, in the distance, they heard the ululations of some of the Moria orcs. They were coming for them.
"What do we do? What do we do?" Yutshrug begged him, yanking at his ruined coat. "We're gonna die, aren't we?! I don't wanna die!" Grôltakh grabbed his collar and clouted him over the head.
"We're not dead yet! And I bet Yishvruk's orcs had to make some other entrances out onto the other side," Grôltakh explained. He let go of Yutshrug. Grôltakh became desperate; now was a time for every orc for himself. He ran down along more stairways, through arches and tunnels that had yet to be filled with Lèkfrêtz's company. The others in the group followed close behind, looking over their shoulders every now and again to see how near behind them their enemies were. He came to a door and paused, recognising the symbol above it. He remembered it from long ago; a friend had shown it to him whilst he had been staying in Lugbûrz. "Through here!" He commanded, and he was followed.
He had led them into a room that would contain no more than fifty orcs, and that would be if they were packed in very tightly. There was a mural on the back wall, consisting of two white trees and some writing in Elvish to the left side of it, and Dwarvish on the right, inlaid with borders of flowers and trees and birds. On the side next to it, written crudely and without the frame the other two wall writings had, was lettering in Orkish. He did not know if it was a translation of what was on the wall, but the Orkish was a poem in Westron, and he noted it down in his head for some reason. But what was most noticeable about the room – indeed, it could not be missed – was an enormous black pool, and there was also a smaller one in the ceiling above them, at the far end of the chamber. The water did not seem to reflect the room though, rather hiding another place beneath its darkness. Grôltakh poked his head through the pool, not to find it was wet but instead it came out somewhere else, and that he was poking his head through the smaller hole in the ceiling whilst there was another big pool in the room below him. This is what he had expected to find; this is what his friend had told him about back at Lugbûrz.
"Follow me through!" He told the others, before he plunged himself through the black water, feet first.
He landed onto the ground below with a thud and moved out of the way. A group of orcs and Uruk-hai came next, all but Yutshrug moving out of the way. He gaped upwards at the dark pool above him, and at what had just happened. Therefore it should have come as no surprise when the next group of orcs and Uruks threw themselves through, that an Uruk managed to land on the snaga's shoulders. The sound of a compressing spinal cord could be clearly heard. Oh, how Yutshrug's face betrayed his pain! Grôltakh made the orcs that had come through go up the stairs on the other side of the chamber. Grôltakh didn't realise it, but some of the orcs that had followed Noshlak had managed to find his group and were coming through the portals. Noshlak himself was nowhere to be seen.
"What just happened?" One of the Uruk-hai asked him.
"We went through the 'Old Portals'," Grôltakh explained. "They were created and used by the elves and dwarves, but that was in a time long past, when the two species were still friends. The portals were used as quick trade links, and escape routes in case of danger. But they went out of use long before orcs ever came to the Misty Mountains." Grôltakh remembered his old friend at Lugbûrz warning him about something to do with the portals, but he could not remember what it was. The others in the room went up the stairs, but Grôltakh lingered a little longer – long enough to see Lèkfrêtz walk over to the portal face, kneel down beside the water's edge and peer down at him, sneering. He did not follow though – Grôltakh had left Moria, and Lèkfrêtz would not stray from his home territory. And of course, he knew the penalty for using the Old Portals. Grôltakh heard footsteps come down the stairs, and without turning to look he knew that Yutshrug was standing there.
"Grôltakh! Grôltakh, we need you 'bove ground!" Yutshrug called to him. He had not noticed that Grôltakh was staring up at Lèkfrêtz. Unwillingly, Grôltakh took his eyes off of Lèkfrêtz and walked away.
They emerged from a constructed hole in the ground to find themselves in the middle of a heavily wooded area, with no sign of human or orkish life. The sky was dark, apart from a small amount of orange sky far off in the west. The bastard – it is not fully dark yet! I should have expected his deal to be false! Grôltakh thought, remembering the deal he had made with Lèkfrêtz.
"…Where are we?" Yutshrug gasped. Grôltakh closed his eyes and concentrated on a memory. He saw a map in front of him, whilst his friend explained to him about the 'Old Portals'. Only two locations on the map were in forests – one in Lothlorien and one in the Druadan Forest in Gondor. And since no elves were around, shooting at them… Grôltakh re-opened his eyes.
"We are…thirty miles north-west of Minas Tirith, in the Druadan Forest."
~End of Chapter 13~
A/N: Don't worry – this is the very last mysterious 'friend' that Grôltakh has – no more will be popping out of the 'woodwork'. I know that it's very coincidental that there just so happens to be a portal in Moria that takes them closer to their goal, but remember, it took Boromir eighty nine days to get from Minas Tirith to Rivendell, and being a son of the Steward of Gondor I doubt that he was walking, or that he stopped off at towns or villages very long either considering the urgency of his mission. Looking at the back of 'The Lord of the Rings' in an appendix, it seems my orcs have at the most, thirteen days to get from Orthanc to Minas Tirith, and that's only for the very end of the battle. About three to seven of those days were spent being lost in Moria (despite Grôltakh's arguments that they were never lost), plus the day it took to get to Moria from Orthanc's tunnels.
Tolkien used the 'Paths of the Dead' for Aragorn (acquiring an army as well) so I think that it's fair if I use a similar time-saving device. After all, our orcs wouldn't be able to make it to Gondor in time for the battles otherwise, now would they? At least I don't think so – I really do need to go and re-read LOTR again. *Looks at length of the book/s* …Mmmmaybe later.