Daniel's Thoughts

Last Chapter

"So the little maggots awake, we were wondering if you would ever wake up. It's no fun playing with prey that can't scream." The first said, drawing the attention of the rest of the group, who came over to watch the fun, and join in if they could.

"Why did you bring me here?" Daniel asked, but he was ignored.

"Yeah, we haven't had proper sport in months."

"Then let's have some fun boys." The largest and obviously the leader said.

The group closed in around him and the 'games' began.

Chapter 2

Daniel ran behind one of the creatures, which he, his hands were bound in front of him, with a lead rope, which one of the creatures found great pleasure in pulling as hard as possible so that Daniel had to either run faster or be pulled to his knees and be dragged along until he managed to get back to his feet or the creature got tired of pulling him along.

They had taken to beating him into unconsciousness every morning before they went to hide in the shade of the trees or in caves they came across on their journey. It seemed that their major weakness was their distaste for the light. So they would knock him out and leave him where he fell until morning when they woke him in some painful manner, ready to run for the duration of the night, before the cycle repeated itself.

Daniel's glasses were long gone, after the creatures had found out that he needed them to see, they had taken them and taunted him with them, holding them just out of reach. When they had finally put them where he could reach them and had started to walk away, but as soon as he had grabbed them the leader had turned back and stomped down on Daniel's hand, crushing the glass in his hand and causing it to bury into his hand, much to their delight.

Along with the glass shards which he hadn't managed to completely remove from his hands and were now becoming red with infection. The creatures had covered him in bruises and welts from their beatings. He had also fallen on his ankle spraining the joint, which sent pain through his leg with every step he took. His clothes were now in rags and the creatures had taken his weapons from him, but thankfully they hadn't worked out how they worked yet. The leader had both his handgun and Zat attacked to its belt which he also had a long sword and whip attached to, both of which he had happily used on Daniel.

They had been running every night for the past three weeks and Daniel was completely exhorted, but he knew if he fell they would beat him again or just dragged him along. It was at the beginning of the 4th week when the group had met up with another group of larger creatures, who apparently thought themselves to be superior to the orcs, who were apparently the group he had been travelling with.

The larger size of the Uruk-Hai, as they claimed to be called, worried him, but what worried him more was the two children they had with them.

One of them was awake and was calling franticly to his friend, who was unconscious on the back of the Uruk-Hai next to him.

"My friend is sick. He needs water. Please!" The child begged.

Daniel looked over to the Uruk-Hai he was taking to and realised his mistake. He knew what the Orcs and Uruk-Hai drank and it was nothing like water, they had forced it down his throat repeatedly and it's only effect was to make him vomit and dehydrate him.

"Sick, is he? Give him some medicine, boys!"

The Uruk-Hai approached the unconscious child, who his friend called Merry, and went to pour the thick, black, sticky mixture down his throat. Knowing what its effects were on him, Daniel didn't think the child would react at all well to the mixture, so he jumped up startling the Orc holding his lead line and ran into the Uruk-Hai with the mixture, which pored down Merry's shirt and the shoulder of the Uruk-Hai holding him.

"Little rat! What is this?" The lead Uruk-Hai demanded of the Orcs, who came forwards pulled Daniel back towards their group.

"He's are fun for the trip." The orc said, kicking Daniel in the ribs.

"Well he needs to be taught a lesson." The leader said, making a grab for Daniel.

A fight over Daniel followed and while they were fighting over him, he crawled over to the children who had been dumped on the ground nearby. Both were now awake.

"Are you alright?"

They both nodded, moving closer to each other.

"I won't hurt you. What are your names?"

"I'm Pippin and this is my cousin Merry." The smaller of the two said.

"I'm Daniel. How did you two end up with this lot? Where are you parents?"

"We were travelling with are friends," Merry said before Pippin could say anything, "we were attacked. As for our parents they are back in the Shire, we are not children as you might think. We're Hobbits."

One of the Uruk-Hai grabbed the back of Daniel's torn shirt before he could reply, pulling him away from the Hobbit's.

"What do you think you're doing? No talking."

Looking around Daniel could see that most of the Orcs were dead and the rest were cowering under a overhanging ledge, apparently having decided that Daniel wasn't worth their lives.

One of the Uruk-Hai paused and sniffed the air.

"What is it? What do you smell?" the leader asked.

"Man-flesh."

"They've picked up our trail."

"Aragorn." Pippin whispered to himself.

"Let's move!" The leader shouted at the group.

Daniel was yanked to his feet and the Hobbit's were thrown over back on the Uruk-Hai's shoulders as they started off again. In front of him, Daniel saw Pippin moving his head strangely as if he was trying to bite the collar of his shirt. He dropped something over his shoulder, which was quickly trampled into the ground. As he went past it Daniel saw that it was a broach of some sort, it appeared that the small Hobbit was leaving a trail.