Disclaimer: O.k., all the characters you know from the movies and books are Tolkiens. Most of the ones you don't recognize are sunandshadows, and so is the whole idea, but she allowed me to play around with it (Thanks a million!). The ownership of my soul is dubitable, but my keyboard is still mine.

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As The Moon Loves The Sun - Part II

Chapter 1: Last Bridge Burning

Once upon a time in the land of Gondor men build a fortification at their northernmost border, in a valley, at the source of the river Angren springing from the surrounding mountains. Using the hardest rock to find they built a ring wall and a mighty tower rising from its centre, and named the fortress Angrenost.

Men's works are seldom forever, yet this outlived the reign of its makers. Through the centuries it fell into the hands of enemies, was won back and granted to loyal friends, and became known as the Iron Enclosure for its hardness and endurance. Finally Gondor gave leave to take abode in Angrenost to a friend of the horselords, the first and greatest of Maiar, Curunár, and after him called the tower Orthanc: the Cunning Mind.

The valley in which the fortress stood came to be know as Nan Curunír, even after the wizard inhabiting it was known all through Middle Earth as Saruman the White. And thence he dwelled for three hundred years, researching old lore, fashioning strange devices, hoarding scrolls and knowledge, watching the stars and wandering under the trees which filled the circle of the wall and the nearby Fangorn Forrest.

Over the decades, the secrets found in the tales of old and the possibilities which the stars seemed to spell out grew more promising than the whispers of trees. And so Saruman spend more and more nights pouring over ancient scrolls, and fewer and fewer days wandering under the trees....

********************

Gríma gazed out of the window of his room, close to one of the ground floor libraries. His face showed no emotion as he surveyed the smoking mines and black-smithies filling the Ring of Isengard. He did not truly see, lost in thought as he was, but he smelled the smoke, and something else, something which evaded the grasping fingers of his mind.

Strange... He had always considered Orthanc as something of a refuge because it was a place of learning and understanding, a place where his own thirst for knowledge was respected, not ridiculed. The trees had been... well, pleasant, but he had never thought of them as a part of what made Isengard a sanctuary. He had never realized how the contrast to the dry, barren, windswept plains of Rohan had soothed his frayed soul as soon as he stepped onto the path leading through the whispering woods. He had never thought that it would hurt him to find the lush vegetation of Isengard replaced by stumps and burned earth. Somehow the sight alarmed him far beyond what a couple of felled trees and smithies justified, but the reason eluded him, and it gnawed at his mind - Gríma was not used to being unable to understand.

Saruman was using Isengard as a stronghold for his orcs. Orcs needed weapons and armour. Weapons and armour had to be forged, and that took forges and lots of fire. But something wasn't...

The solution wavered into grasping reach and then slipped away as a knock at the doorframe interrupted Gríma's train of thought. He spun around, working hard to hide his irritation, should its cause happen to be Saruman. A smallish orc with yellow eyes like a goat's stood in the door way.

"The master summons you."

Its speech was barely intelligible; it was difficult to believe these loathsome creatures had been shaped from elves, by all accounts a delicate, beautiful people, with a language like music and love for songs. Legend had it that elf blood ran in the royal bloodline of Gondor, and certainly Faramir had seemed to have an instinct for poetry, more than any man (or maiden) of Rohan anyway... Shaking his head in dismissal of such useless thoughts, Gríma dragged his mind into the more relevant track of trying to calculate all the different paths his confrontation with Saruman might take. "Lead the way, then." He gestured imperiously. He usually enjoyed lording it over the mindless orcs, but today he had not the attention to spare, and was haughty merely out of habit. The orc led the way up a flight of steps, and Gríma followed.

On arriving in Orthanc, Gríma had been told by one of Saruman's minions that the wizard was too busy to see him. He had not been certain whether this was a good or a bad sign. Clearly it showed the unimportance of anything Gríma had to tell, and therefore his failing as a spy, yet that could not be surprising. Gandalf's battle for the mind of Theoden king could not have gone unnoticed by Saruman; the wizard had even spoken through the king! Perhaps he had expected his spy to be slain by the enraged monarch and already made plans to do without him...

Or, a darker thought - maybe he had, on Gríma's arrival in Isengard, decided to dispose of his useless ally himself. But no, surely he would have deputized an orc for such a task? Saruman was never one to waste his time on something as simple as an execution... Gríma shuddered at the thought of his own death as a 'simple' thing, but that was absolutely what it would be to Saruman, what it would have been to Theoden, or practically anyone. _...Except Faramir..._ a thought prodded him, but he ignored it, forcing his mind back to finding a way to survive the impending meeting, which neared with every one of the tower's many worn stone steps which passed beneath his feet. Counting the multitudes who would take satisfaction in his death would do nothing towards averting said death. Well, perhaps it might motivate him to live just to spite them all... Gríma almost smiled.

If Saruman really considered disposing of a servant who had lost his usefulness... what could Gríma offer him to prove that his services might yet be valuable? What kind of information could buy him time, if not lasting security? The arrival of the long lost heir to the throne of Gondor? The presence of the sons of Denethor? Éowyn's noticeable preference for Faramir, or Faramir's preference...

Something in Gríma shuddered and recoiled at the thought of disclosing that tale to Saruman, but before he could decipher it, the orc stopped in front of a doorway and stood aside to let Gríma enter.

Saruman awaited him in a large study close to one of his alchemical workrooms on one of the lower floors of the tower. Gríma could hear orcs shuffling and toiling in one of the adjacent rooms. Saruman was whispering orders to a trio of orcs and showed no inclination to cut his instructions short when Gríma arrived. A rather see-through gesture to impress Gríma with his lack of importance, the former counsellor thought, and painfully unnecessary at that. But it gave him a few moments more to try to find something with which to purchase his continued existance.

At last Saruman dismissed the orcs and turned towards Gríma, his dark, deep eyes measuring the man.

"So, you have failed."

Well. If nothing else, that was a clear starting point for their conversation. Gríma knew better than to make an attempt at defense, so he merely lowered his head deferentially. Saruman allowed the silence to last long enough to be uncomfortable before continuing.

"And foolishly so... to let the interfering old crow into the presence of the king, and armed with his staff!"

Pointing out that Saruman himself had exulted in predicting that Gandalf would be helpless to cut through the web he had thrown over Theoden's mind, Gríma felt, would not improve his situation. He contented himself with saying that he had given strict orders to have the wizard's staff taken from him.

Saruman sneered at this. "Yes, and then trusted a meat-headed Rohirrim warrior to carry out that order. Spiting _you_ might have been one of his reasons in leaving the old fool his staff!"

Without being aware of it, Gríma fell back into the old nervous habit of twisting a piece of cloth around his fingers. He knew Saruman was right. He _should_ not have trusted Hama with so important a thing. He knew that no wizard would part from his staff as long as there was any way around it, and how could he not have seen that it would be a child's play for the cunning old conjurer to outwit some bone-headed warrior? He had fumed about Hama's thickheadedness often enough to know that even taking one of the most powerful maiar on Middle-Earth for a feeble old man would not be beyond Hama's capacity for foolishness.

Well. _The_ most powerful maiar on Middle-Earth, as his success in breaking Saruman's influence over Theoden's mind had established as a fact. Pointing _that_ out to Saruman would probably put an definite, though not necessarily quick end to his troubles.

But why had he failed to control Hama? Easy enough. Because his thoughts had been distracted by dreams and ridiculous compliments and the shocking kindness of an infatuated prince! Yet... Gandalf had seemed forewarned of the enchantment upon the king. It was quite possible that even a slavishly loyal Hama would not have been able to part the maiar, canny as he was ancient, from his staff when he knew it would be needed.

Seeing that Gríma was not tempted to fill the silence, Saruman continued.

"And what, Gríma Wormtongue, do you think will come about in Edoras now that your influence on Theoden King has failed?"

Gríma tasted bitterness in the back of his throat at the hated epithet, but concentrated on the question.

"Theoden now knows of the attacks on his people from both the Dunlanders and the Uruk-hai, and Theodred, Eomer, and Éowyn will have no difficulty convincing him that war is at hand. He will not stay at Edoras. His horsemen are war-trained, yet in Edoras they have no stronghold to fall back on. It is too vulnerable..."

While Gríma spun his reasoning for Helms Deep as the most likely place for the Rohirrim to flee to, Saruman was silent. When Gríma had finished, the wizard only raised his eyebrows in response, then rose and motioned Gríma to stay and wait while he headed for a staircase leading into the depths of Isengard.

Gríma tried to use the time to bring his thoughts to order. A voice nagged him that something was terribly wrong. It was only a whisper, yet it slowly seemed to increase in volume, hindering his thinking. He could not pinpoint the reason. Everything was as ever at Isengard: Saruman's aloof pride, toiling orcs in every corner... So far there had been no sign that Saruman planed to dispose of him, and Saruman seemed to think Gríma's reasoning about the destination of the Rohirrim valuable, which ought to be encouraging.

He should tell Saruman about Gandalf's companions, and the strength of the Rohirrim. But if there was anything which might yet prolong his value as a spy it would be the Gondorian Captain's regard for him, it might turn out to be useful yet. It might prove Gríma to be useful...

_...Wrong... ...Something very wrong here and you can't see it..._ the whisper said.

Grímas reveries were wiped away by Saruman returning and striding past him into a chamber next to the workroom, beckoning Gríma to follow. As he did so, grasping a candle to supplement the pale daylight entering through few and narrow windows, he saw what the orcs he had heard had been doing: Huge, iron-cast orbs lay in one corner and were, one after the other, being heaved down the stairs leading to the court yard outside. They were so heavy that even four orcs together could hardly lift them.

Gríma's curiosity made it difficult to pay attention to the wizard's questions about Helm's Deep, how many days it might take the Rohirrim to get there, about the provisions they would find stored in the Hornburg, about its weaknesses...

He felt slightly foolish for relating what Saruman could either fathom for himself or could make no use of. Yes, there was one tiny weakness, the drain which allowed the rivulet coming down from the mountains to leave through the Deepening Wall. Even if the iron bars could be destroyed, five men would suffice to defend the ensuing opening.

While Gríma answered, Saruman proceeded to fill the one orb **still** left in middle of the room with a dark, dry substance, alike to coarse-grained black sand. Though Gríma had spent some time studying alchemy, he could not identify it. He moved in to take a closer look, so captivated by his curiosity that Saruman caught him by suprise when he grabbed the wrist holding the candle stick and pushed it away from the iron sphere.

As always Saruman did not waste one moment or word on remonstrance or warning, but the expression that passed over his face for just a moment... Trepidation? It had passed too quickly for Gríma to be sure of it, but surely it was the closest he had ever seen to fear on the wizards face. What would have happened if the candle had touched this innocuous looking substance? Something dramatic enough to intimidate a maiar. If Gríma turned now and held the flame to the powder...

It was too late, Saruman's servants closed the iron sphere and hauled it away. Gríma felt the skin on his back crawl. Where had such a mad impulse come from? He followed Saruman towards a doorway, concentrating on searching further disclosures.

"But even if the walls were to fall, it would take numbers beyond imagination to take the fortress. Thousands!"

"Ten thousand." Saruman's reply was cool and calm as always, but there seemed in it a hint of pride. What did he plan? All the Dunlanders and Orcs in Rohan combined did not even come close to such a number. Gríma said so while following Saruman past the pedestal holding the palantir and onto a balcony overlooking the circle of Isengard.

Saruman did not answer, nor did he have too. The answer rose up from below them, from the court yard dimly lit by the failing light of the sinking sun.

At first Grímas mind refused to take in what his senses tried to tell. Whatever it was down in the yard, it could not be what his eyes tried to convince him of. The part directly below him was the best lit, and there was no denying that down there were Uruk-hai, a large troop of them, it had to be far more than hundred. Gríma had had no notion that Saruman had bred so many of them. And beside them, in the dimmer light - another troop. And another.

Finally it sunk in what the court yard was filled with, what it was that moved like a thin layer of water flowing over a bed of rocks. Helms and sword and shields and pikes and banners rising everywhere as Uruk-hai shifted and moved in their eagerness to set forth, to find something to kill. To find humans to kill. Realization ran icy fingers over Gríma's back and up his neck, and suddenly he knew with dead certainty what had felt so wrong. So _many_ fires, so _many_ trees cut down, so _much_ smoke and orc- stink... Saruman's speech was drowned out by the incoherent tumult in his head. Only when the monstrous army began to stream out of the court yard and into the twilight did Gríma perceive that his face was wet.

If he had thought about it, he probably wouldn't have managed to bring himself to a decision. But now all his skills to dissect and weigh and calculate were shattered, and there were no thoughts left, only knowledge. Knowledge that the humans of Rohan were going to be mowed down like so much grass. Knowledge that even with the walls standing, their chances would be scarce. And the walls would not hold, Saruman had made sure of that. _Gríma_ had made sure of that when he told the Maiar about the one weakness in the only defense that stood between a few hundred fragile human bodies and ten thousand advancing Uruk-hai.

Gríma did not know with what Saruman had filled those spheres, but clearly it was to hold the power to undo the strongest walls, and fire was the key to that power. He knew the stairway to which the orcs had lugged the spheres... he paused for a moment, then snatched up a beaker. He forced himself to walk down the stairs with his habitual blend of arrogance and servitude.

_Don't hide what you are doing. You are only heeding Saruman's will, as always._

He knew that it would work; even if his bluntness wouldn't be proof enough of his authorization, even if there was against all odds an orc who would actually bother to _think_ about wether or not Saruman's human minion acted on the order of his master, _nobody_ ever bothered Saruman with questions. Even orcs were clever enough to know that that was a certain way to pain.

A few steps away from the foot of the stairway was the siege equipment that the last contingent of Uruk-hai would transport. And there were the spheres... with a sinking feeling Gríma realized that he didn't have the strength to open the cast iron vessels, and even if he had - it would seem unnatural; he never soiled his hands with heavy labour.

_Oh well._

He took care to keep his voice steady and cool as he called for a nearby orc to open the orb. He was relieved to see that the orc obeyed with the usual unquestioning obedience, but even so he had to keep his hands in the shadows of his wide garments to hide their shivering while he filled the beaker. He calmly ordered the orc to close the container and turned back to the stairs, half expecting Saruman to stand behind him, to come down the stairs, to stand on the balcony looking down on him... on his way up the stairs, shielded from all eyes, he lowered his arm and let the wide folds of his vestments slide over the beaker, then walked to his rooms, grateful for all the years of veiling his emotions, his pain and fears which now allowed him to lock up the chaos inside under the mask of the obedient, always dilligent servant...

***************

When Gríma reached his room his hands were shaking so badly as to make it difficult to put down the beaker onto his desk without tipping it and spilling its contents.

Gríma leaned against the wall and slowly sank down as his knees gave out under him. Deafened by the tumult of random thoughts in his head he slowly pulled a piece of cloth from his sleeve and began wrapping it around his fingers - tighter, tighter until the tips of his fingers turned blue and cold while he fought to grasp hold of one of the thoughts whirling through his mind.

The army.

He had not realized it then, but that had been the smell he had been unable to place. That stink, like to that of orcs, but different still, underlain with a reek of spoiled earth, like too little ground covering too much carrion.

So.

The Rohirrim would fall, all and sundry.

Éowyn would die.

Faramir would die.

Good thing then that Gríma had not cared for his attention, was it not.

Éowyn... he realized now that even fleeing from Edoras still he had hoped to somehow gain enough power, to somehow be of enough service to Saruman...

His service to Saruman.

Well, that was at its end. What use for a spy and traitor with no Rohirrim alive to spy out or betray? Like a parasite killing its host Gríma had destroyed what kept him alive. Even if Gríma had any influence left...

Faramir.

The only one left whom Gríma might have a chance to manipulate. The only living creature Gríma could recall to look at him without disgust. The only one to care for his life and well-being. And he would soon be dead.

So, what was left? What was left of all he had been, counselor, spy, scribe, scholar, distant admirer hoping against all hope?

Slowly, he released the cloth around his fingers and stared down at his numb fingertips as if seeing them for the first time. A shudder run through his body, then another, and then his whole body was being shaken.

Shaken with laughter.

Valar, it was _riotous_. There was _nothing_ left, nothing left to loose. Gríma might as well jump out of the window right now or start writing "Sauron fornicates with sheep" all over the walls of Orthanc or light a little bonfire and pour that amusing grey substance into it to lend an air of intrepid scholarly experimentation to his last moments.

Gríma laughed as if his sanity had finally decided that it was fed up with this sorry creature and left for good, tears streaming from his eyes, his hands braced onto the floor to keep himself from collapsing entirely.

It was all the same, he was free to do what he whished, for none of it would make a difference. It was all over.

Finally, his laughter died down to occasional sobs.

Well, seeing as he could, at long last, do as he pleased, he might as well piss against Saruman's leg before taking his leave of this dismal world.

Throwing those pellets onto a fire and see what happened - well, that was a nice dramatic thought, yes, but as for cunning it was more suited to a straw-headed Rohan warrior than to a scholar.

Gríma took a few deep breaths to calm himself, then looked towards the desk at the strange substance he had so rashly acquired.

Fire would activate it, and Gríma had spent enough time dabbling in alchemy to know that it wouldn't start reciting epics at the enemy. The crucial question was, how large was its destructive potential?

He stood and went to his desk to cut a thin strip of paper from one of his scrolls, then soaked it in lamp-oil. He chose an empty corner of his room to spread the strip on the ground and place one single pellet, no larger than a seed, on one end of the paper. He stood and looked around, then moved all oil lamps to the opposite corner of the room. The beaker in one hand and a lamp in the other he carefully lit the far end of the paper, then scurried out of the room, dragging the door shut behind him and pressing himself to the wall beside it.

Nothing.

Nothing?

Still nothing.

Gríma began to calculate how long the paper would take to burn away completely, then jumped at a crash from his room, as loud as if something heavy had been smashed against a wall.

In the corner he found not a trace of ashes, only a scorched circle on the floor, as large nearly as the span of his hand. After some thinking he emptied one of the oil lamps, set another strip of paper as a wick, and poured as much as a spoonful of pellets into it.

This time the thunderclap from his room was accompanied by the crash of smashed pottery, and he found the shards of the lamp in all the four corners as well as embedded in various of the room's furnishings.

He thoughtfully stared into emptiness while his fingers ran along the sharp edges of a lamp shard imbedded in the back of one of his books.

There was no way to leave Orthanc while the army was still blocking the way out, and they would take at the very least another fifteen minutes to leave the fortress itself, almost an hour to leave the immediate surroundings of Isengard. And then... if he was very lucky, he would manage to cause enough havoc to get to Raven and flee. And after that? There was only one place left to go to if he deserted Saruman - only one man to go to. And that one man was surrounded by hundreds of Rohirrim who would like nothing better than to kill Gríma on sight.

Another deep breath and Gríma forced his thoughts away from that.

He would go to Helm's Deep, that was decided and not to be revised any more. He put the book down and began to tear a broad strip of linen from one of his bedsheets, then another one and one more. The siege equipment... He poured mounds of the darkish-grey pellets onto the cloth. What he had seen of the contraptions consisted of ladders of different size. There had been hulking shapes containing iron cogwheels... they would use the ladders to breach the walls. Gríma rose to extinguish one of the oil lamps which lit his room and pull out the wicks. Assume that he could escape to Helm's Deep, that he was not killed on sight, that he could prevent the walls from being destroyed. What then to do about thousands of warriors ready to breach the walls in ten different places at once? He burried the wicks in the grey mounds and started to wrap the cloth around the first mound, taking care that a long end of the wick stuck out.

How could the ladders be destroyed? A sally into that sea of well-armed and battle-frenzied Uruks would be madness. Burning arrows? Too easy to extinguish, and it would take dozens to have even a small effect. Gríma knotted the ends of the cloth securely, then went to work on the next mound.

Catapults then. Would there be catapults at Helms Deep? Given the Eorlingas' traditional distrust towards anything less straightforward than to rush forth and attack, it was not likely. Stones... could be found in the caves. Not very good ones, but sufficient to do some damage. Of course, if he could find a way to use this mysterious grey substance combined with fire....

Grímas hands stilled on the third bundle and he stared sightlessly into the shadowy corners of his room. Then he resumed his task with a new air of purpose to his movements.

*********************

Gríma made his way to the laboratory with the three bundles hidden next to his skin - he was _almost_ completly sure that the warmth of a human body would not suffice to ignite the explosive. He took a way which led him past the study where he knew Saruman to keep the palantir. Walking slowly and soundlessly, he could hear Saruman's voice in a soft murmur and something else... something dark, just beyond the edge of his hearing. It was not so much a sound as a weight of presence, a conviction that there was somebody standing behind him, breathing down his neck...

It passed when Gríma walked on and the whispering in his head diminished. The laboratory and its surroundings were empty, as always when Saruman was not using it. It took Gríma only a few minutes to find what he was looking for. Wrapping it into bundles and securing it beneath his clothes took longer - he had to make sure that nothing would spill out; this particular compound would do serious harm to his skin upon touching it.

_You could still turn back._

He hesitated for a moment at the thought, then left and headed for Saruman's study.

Yes, he could still return the chemicals, return to his room and wait for new orders. And then what? If he was very lucky, Saruman might yet find some use for his puppet which would make it expidient to postpone killing Gríma. Saruman might even succeed and, in the ensuing sense of elation, reward his servant. But with what? Gríma's step faltered and his eyes closed in pain when the words _leave none alive_ echoed in his head. There was little enough in this world which Gríma wanted as it was, and that one point of light was not only at an unattainable distance, but about to be extinguished. If Saruman succeded, what could the place Middle-Earth would become hold that was worth having?

There it was again, that shade in his mind, and then Saruman's voice. From what Gríma remembered of the room, the palantir would be to the left of the door way... He looked around, then slipped two of the three bundles behind some of the heavy black structures which framed the door way. The wicks showed only by a finger's breadth, just long enough to be lighted with one of the candles which illuminated the hall way. A moment later Gríma was walking towards the stairs which would lead him outside, to the stables.

When he was almost at the stairway, he coult hear steps behind him, the shuffling gait of an orc. Not a large one, from the sound of the steps. Gríma felt his skin crawl up his spine and had to force himself not to walk more quickly. Certainly the foul creature was just walking this way by coincidence, certainly it had not been sent by Saruman to summon Gríma to the wizard...

He heard no blast, only felt a giants hand smash him against a wall - and then sound and his faculty to panic returned as stones and rubble and dust and sharp shards rained down all around him with a racket that was an assault in itself. Panic seized him, and his heart and innards tried to explode his chest to escape. The tower, he had miscalculated, or the wall had been too badly damaged, and now the tower had collapsed and he was buried under it, buried alive, and he would die in this darkness, and his death might take days to come...

A panicked breath shot a stab of pain through his chest and Gríma gasped, his eyes starting to water. Without thinking he tried to move his hand to his chest and found that he _could_ move it, though under pain and exertion of all his strength. He clenched his teeth and forced himself to try and push himself up. This time the pain blackened out his vision... But he had endured worse, certainly he had, even if he could not remember when and where, and he would endure worse if he didn't escape quickly... finally he managed to pull his legs free, to crawl out under the rubble and pull himself upright by bracing himself on the fallen stones and shards.

When he looked around, his vision obscured by blood, he saw that part of what had weighted his legs down had been the body of the orc which had been walking behind him only seconds ago. It had protected him from the worst of the blast. Well, the creature was clearly beyond being thanked. Gríma groaned as he forced himself to stand up. The cruel pain in his upper body whenever he moved almost convinced him to just remain lying there, but he knew that there was little time.

Gríma wiped away the blood running down his face and started to limp down the stairs when a whisper crept over the back of his consciousness. The skin on his back tried to crawle away at the sensation of this voice that seemed to reach his mind without passing through his ears.

_Wormtongue_

He clenched his teeth. He'd be damned before he answered to that name again.

_Gríma. Come To Me._

He was telling himself that he knew this voice to be a traitor's song even more than his own was, that he would not obey, that he would move away in a moment, but the pain in his chest seemed to dull while he listened, and to lessen even more while he moved towards the rubble which had been Saruman's room...

_Gríma. You Can Still Have Her. I Can Give Her To You. I Can Give You Even Better Than Her._

Something inside of Gríma rebelled. After all the pain and dissapointment his 'bargain' with Saruman had brought him, this thing could promise him the moon and the stars and every single book of Middle Earth into the bargain for all that he cared. He dragged the black cloth from the rubble and threw it over the red orb.

The voice retreated from his mind with a last angry snarl, and it was only then that Gríma realized that it hadn't been a voice so much as the ghost of a presence. The hair on his neck stood on end as he realized what this was - to whose mind he had shut his own just in time. Valar, no wonder that Saruman had succumbed to it... An unexpected twinge of compassion for his teacher and mentor of old shot through him. Saruman... he looked around to see a dirty bundle of costly cloth lying under the rubble, a bundle that had, half an eternity ago, been the most awesome presence on all of Middle Earth.

Voices of orcs from a higher level of the tower shook Gríma from his thoughts. There was no time left to dally. Without further thought he turned and limped towards the stairs and the stable as fast as his battered body would allow.

Raven had been skittish from the first moment of entering Isengard - no wonder, the smell of the Orcs was unpleasant enough to Gríma, and weren't horses supposed to have keener senses than men? Now, after the blast of the fire pellets shaking the whole building, Gríma could hear the nervous whinying even before entering the stables.

"That makes two of us who don't like it here anymore. A kindred soul at last."

A bleak grin managed to sneak onto Grímas face in spite of himself. Strange how a heavy blow to the head helped to bring out the irony of things. He moved towards Raven's box as quickly as the pain would allow him, and the mare seemed to calm down somewhat, but kept pawing the ground restlessly.

"Yes, we're saying fare-thee-well to all these nice people now. Time to go to Helm's Deep where they don't think that black rock is a good thing to decorate rooms with. Likely they've already found something to carve horseheads into. What a predictable lot."

Yes, predicting the course of their deeds had always been all too easy, and so was foreseeing their response to the return of the hated traitor Wormtongue - the place would boil like a stirred ants' nest. Would being able to predict them mean being able to keep them from killing him when he arrived among them once more? _If_ he arrived...

While Raven calmed down at the sound of his soft voice mumbling nonsense, Gríma looked around for something to use to get onto her back - he knew without trying that in his present state he had no chance of climbing onto her back unaided.

No boxes or barrels in sight, but down the aisle were a few cubes of straw. Despite their usefullness Gríma allowed himself a sneer. The Rohirrim might be barbarians, but at least they were _tidy_ barbarians - no one in Edoras would dream of impeding the comings and goings in the aisle by having straw laying around like this.

He led Raven to the cubes and leaned heavily on her while climbing the stack. She seemed to sense his intentions and bowed her front legs enough for him to climb onto her back with as much ease as his cracked ribs would allow. Then she rose carefully and made her way to the stable doors, each step sending new jolt of pain through Gríma's body. He clenched his teeth and tried to breath as flat as possible, the night air cold after the stable's warmth. The ride to Helms Deep might take days... if he had ever felt the inclination to spend days on a horse's back, his skin covered in sweat and blood and grime while racing death to safe harbour, he might just as well have become a warrior. At least they got armour. As well as the admiration of silly girls. And he got what? The admiration of silly captains? One, anyway.

Gríma leaned forward to Ravens head and whispered into her ear. "Faramir. Bring us back to Faramir. Run to him..."

Raven obediently chose a path leading south, still marked from the Uruks' progress not long ago, and began to canter. She slowed down into a soft walk when she heard her rider's moan of pain, but Gríma spurred her on, using the pain to keep himself awake. He knew he would have to steer Raven clear of the army which took the same way to Helm's Deep which the two of them would travel.

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O.k., there you are. Great? Dismal? Author should bite off her fingers rather than continue? Author should slash Theoden with Gimli, Haldir with Gandalf and Legolas with one of the Uruks? For comments, flames, critics, plotbunnies, wishes, condemnations - see that pretty blueish review button down left? And thanks.