****Author's Note****
I'm back in the dreary depths of university, in full swing now, so updates really will be slowing down now. I do have a few chapters completed and backlogged, but I will be spreading out posting to give me time to write more.

At seeing Vezhir taking his slave away, Ar-Tashk's wrath had suppressed all other senses of thought and reason, despite his preoccupation with the graug. He had promised his slave that she would never suffer the overlord again; he had failed her. His mind was entirely taken by the contemptuous urge to take the uruk's arms, one in each hand, and pull him apart, limb from limb, and stuff the dismembered parts down the uruk's own gullet; or to impale the overlord with a bolt and leave him, still alive, hanging over a pit of angry ghuls. Nothing the olog would think of, any form of punishment, could satisfy or calm his fury.

The graug took full advantage of the olog's incensed distraction. It latched its mighty, clawed hands on the olog, hefting him off the ground, and hurling him full force into the nearby river. It charged into the water after him, but the speed of the water flow, with the slick rocks below the surface, swept the graug off balance, providing the opening that Ar-Tashk needed to shove a bolt through the beast's heel. The pair fought ruthlessly, above and below the rushing water, being dragged further and further downstream.

The undertow ran dark with both juggernauts' blood. A mile or so down the course of the river, the rushing current sent the blackening waters cascading over a cliff edge that the pair was swiftly being dragged towards. They beat and slashed at each other, each fighting to reach the surface to take a breath while forcing their opponent back under when they could. The rumbling of the approaching falls was growing ever louder, ever more threatening, until there was only one moment left to react.

Ar-Tashk had just barely enough wherewithal to use the graug's massive body to clamber atop of and springboard from the current with a mighty leap, just before the river could throw him into the void. The graug's snarl echoed from the cliffs in dim shock as it disappeared over the edge of the falls, careening to the jagged rocks below. Ar-Tashk clung to the boulders lining the riverside, heaving himself, slogging onto the shore. His whole body was sore and soaked, with a number of gouges torn into his thick hide. Anyone else would have taken a moment to regroup, but not the Reaper. He was desperate to reach his slave.

Not heeding his own injuries, Ar-Tashk rushed back to the cliffside where he had seen Vezhir dragging Alaesia away. On the whistles of wind coursing through the network of tunnels that riddled the cliffside, Ar-Tashk was just able to hear her screams, calling his name. The pain in her voice, calling for help as it wavered, echoed from the rocks, and pierced his mind. No orcs chanting his name had ever spurred him the way her voice did. Nothing in the world had ever called to the deepest parts of his psyche like that before. Though thoroughly pummeled from his fight with the graug, the olog raced to seek out tunnel after tunnel, trying to find some way to reach his isla.

Every second that ticked by grew longer as he scoured the area, following flows of air and the sound of his slave's cries, until Ar-Tashk found a passage among the cliff side crags, just big enough to grant his bulky form access. He forced his way past jutting rock formations, breaking down everything that stood in his way. All the while, he was keenly aware of her calls growing weaker, faltering before silence fell.

When all that finally separated him from his slave was a last protrusion of rock, Ar-Tashk began ripping at the stones, breaking away chunk after chunk to enable him to get a bead on Vezhir's rageful visage. As the uruk stabbed his sword into something just beyond Ar-Tashk's field of view, the olog desperately jammed his ballista between the gap, and pulled the trigger.

The weight of Vezhir's foot was ripped from Alaesia's throat, a sudden and unseen force ramming him against the wall of the chamber. She jerked and gasped, sucking in air and coughing on the dust kicked up by the uruk's sudden movement. Her eyes snapped up, trying to figure out what had happened. Only then did she see a great iron bolt drilled into the cave wall, dripping ichor and gore from its shaft, just above shoulder height, where Vezhir's head once was.

The uruk's body stood for only a moment, supported by the wall of the chamber, only to slump and trail black blood down the rock face. A singular, yellow eye dropped onto the ground with a plop, the faintest hint of a glow from within it rapidly dimming until it was dark and lifeless. Alaesia held back a scream, out of fear she would vomit at the sight, the vivid memory of the last moment's of Ku-Gohn the Gourmet leaping into her mind. Her eyes followed the line of the bolt, back into one of the other tunnels shooting off from the chamber, to see a battered, familiar olog wedged in as far in between the cave walls as he could fit.

Time seemed to freeze the moment Vezhir's body fell. Ar-Tashk had done it; he had finally brought an end to the miserable worm's life. He had succeeded in killing the overlord, but everything stood as still as death. The heavy scent of blood filled the air, with undernotes of bittersweet death. It was as if his heart stopped, just waiting to beat again, until the moment he spotted Alaesia's blood-smeared face.

Ar-Tashk let his ballista fall from his grasp, all adrenaline coursing through him drawn out, like poison from a wound for the pure relief that flooded his senses; she was alive! He had forced his oversized weapon through the gap to take a shot at Vezhir, not knowing if she was dead or alive, but seeing her use the wall to stand was more than he hoped for. In the process of getting his weapon into position, he had completely shredded the back of his hand and arm open on the jagged edges of the cave walls. His own black blood poured down the rocks, but he didn't care. The pain was all worth it, seeing her still alive. Yet, for a moment, she looked away, as if searching for another exit.

Ar-Tashk felt his heart sink. His isla was beyond his reach, beyond his control. All she had to do was slip into one of the tunnels, and he'd never see her again, he would never get to hold her again. The olog uttered a deep rumble, sounding like a wounded animal, but not because of any of the injuries he had sustained. Knowing she would leave him elicited a mournful grimace from the olog as he called to her, "Isla, isla-izub…"

Seconds turned into minutes of silence, before Ar-Tashk realized he could hear a faint shuffling. When he looked over the rocks where his hand was wedged, the olog held his breath. Alaesia, her clothing torn to ribbons, clinging with one hand to the wall and with the other curled around a bundle held tightly to her chest, was slowly limping her way toward him. Immediately, the olog started clawing at the rocks with renewed vigor, breaking piece after piece away, until his other hand was free. With both mighty fists he battered the barrier, kicking the debris out of the way as it fell. She made it to the gap, just as he was able to pull the ballista out of the tunnel pathway.

Alaesia couldn't stop her legs from crumpling underneath her, only to find the olog's massive, bloody hand there to catch her before she could fall. A part of her mind screamed for her to flee, to get lost in the tunnels where the olog could never follow. But the other part of her simply wanted to cry as he pulled her through the gap and took her into the crook of his arm. Everything about Alaesia's world felt wrong, to turn to a monster of Mordor for help was unthinkable, yet somehow it was the only thing that she could do.

"Kul amul. Lat fulaknar. I have you…" Ar-Tashk let the woman rest against him and tried to wipe black uruk blood, and her own crimson blood, from her cheeks. She wept quietly and sank into his arms as he withdrew from the caves, back into the sunlight, where he finally took notice of the bundle in her own grasp.

Ar-Tashk looked closer, realizing the bundle was, in fact, an infant. A cold bitterness swept across his gut, remembering the last time he had seen a human carrying its whelp: the human slave woman and her male companion.

Ar-Tashk had hardly bat an eye just a few weeks earlier, when the male slave had killed the mother and her child in desperation. At the time, he simply hadn't cared; after all, pinkskin slaves were expendable. Countless numbers of them died at the hands of Mordor's orcs every day. But now, it was worse still when considering the fate of the slaves corpses when he had allowed the orcs under his command to tear up all three bodies as rations.

The idea of his slave and her whelp suffering the same fate was too much to bear. Yet, knowing just a fraction of what his slave had suffered through at Vezhir's hands, he wondered if a swift death would have been a mercy.

As if sensing questions were passing through the olog's mind, Alaesia whispered, "I didn't want…. I couldn't just leave it there… t-to rot with him or be eaten by wild beasts…" Even as she spoke, Alaesia couldn't tell if she was trying to convince the olog of her words, or herself. Her heart ached with confusion.

It was difficult to get a good look at the small body tucked against Alaesia's chest. Ar-Tashk could barely see tiny, cold fingers and toes that would never grasp for it's mother. He could scent the death surrounding his slave's little one and instead of triumph or anger as death had always made him feel, rather he only felt sadness. The olog nodded, "No leave to rot. No beasts. Find good place, for rest."

Despite having sired the whelp, Vezhir's corpse should rot alone and forgotten, Ar-Tashk thought grimly.

****Translations****

Isla - life maker

Kul amul. Lat fulaknar. - Be at ease. You are safe.