Another short one. I'm afraid it got a bit info-dumpy...
The sky was mercifully gloomy and overcast as they shambled along a rocky stretch of ground. But the terrain was slow going, and the still air and solitude weren't doing much for Durgrat either. The tunnels under Orthanc were no palace, but they had their advantages. There was always someone to talk to, for one. Razashûk seemed all too comfortable with being quiet.
It was a common enough misconception that the key to life down in the caverns of Isengard was merely a question of being sufficiently vicious. It wasn't that simple. Durgrat could manage mean easily enough, it was just the wrong kind of mean. Despite his size, he lacked any real commanding presence, which was just as well since he also didn't have the drive or desire to go about bossing everyone around. Might as well paint a target on your back.
But when, say, Captain Garmog snarled that his favorite dagger was missing, or some unlucky grunt was certain that quiver had exactly eight arrows in it just a few minutes ago, Durgrat would peer out from whatever shadowy corner he was skulking in and smile to himself.
Soon enough he'd grown bored with pilfering from kitchens and storerooms, and he'd swiped enough stuff to bribe the guards into letting him into one of Saruman's forbidden study rooms, which proved quite lucrative. In addition to the map, he'd gained such riches as a particularly shiny stone that had been weighing down some old parchments, a slim volume of erotic poetry he couldn't read (but that had illustrations), four assorted iron keys, and a small pouch full of mystery dust. He figured if it wasn't valuable on its own, maybe he could persuade some dimwit into thinking it was magical or at least had fun effects when snorted, and gain a few extra coins.
His ambitious daydream of becoming a small-time con artist was interrupted by Razashûk piercing the air with a yelp. He turned and saw the Orc hopping around and furiously swatting at his shoulder while a string of Orkish swear words burst forth from his snarling mouth. Durgrat wasn't familiar with the dialect, but got the general gist of it.
"Settle down. It's not like someone shot you. Though they might, if you keep yelling like that."
"Easy to say when you're not the one getting shit-bombed by birds. Fucking fancy rats, that's all they are." He squinted disapprovingly up at the sky, as if more of them were hiding in wait behind the clouds.
Durgrat shrugged. Back in Isengard getting shat on by a crow was practically a rite of passage; you knew you'd made it when one of the White Wizard's messengers chose to let you know exactly what it thought of you.
Razashûk had got a better handle on their location after passing through territory with a clear view of the mountains in the distance. He marked a tentative path on the map with a piece of charcoal, careful not to damage the ancient ink underneath. He trusted the map was fairly accurate despite its age, and had so far managed to squelch the urge to make any clever additions like stink lines over Lorien or a new pond around Orthanc.
Speaking of which, if Durgrat had any duplicity on his mind, he'd apparently elected to slowly drive Razashûk mad rather than just kill him and eat his guts and be done with it. He was prone to saying half of something and then just trailing off as if Razashûk could magically hear whatever was rattling around in that thick skull of his. Maybe there was something to those jokes about Isengarders having only one brain to share between them, and without Saruman's power the enchanted threads connecting it all had been cut.
He decided to change course since having half a conversation was even more annoying than dead silence. He'd just yammer on so that the Uruk couldn't get part of a word in edgewise.
He shared a story from his childhood, regaling Durgrat with the tale of the clever young huntress Borrarz, who tricked a treacherous band of Elf marauders into falling into their own traps and made off with their treasure, laughing all the way home while wearing a cloak dyed red with their blood. Razashûk found himself more spirited about it than he would've thought, providing obnoxious voices for the Elves and even snarls from Borrarz's beloved Warg. He felt a blink of embarrassment as he realized what he was doing, but Durgrat looked amused enough, and not in a "Get a load of this idiot!" way.
Durgrat told the somewhat less inspiring story of the time the shifty whiteskin guarding the prison cages accidentally fell backwards onto a knife about a dozen times.
When they grew too exhausted to go any further and the light began swiftly fading, Razashûk plunked down on the ground and started to build a sad little nest out of his belongings. Durgrat followed suit, kicking a few rocks out of the way before flopping onto his back.
Razashûk squirmed. His stomach pinched in on itself and made a squelching sound. Come morning, he'd have to break it to his companion that there was no avoiding the forest if they wanted to eat. This part of the plains wasn't hospitable to anything edible, plant or animal alike.
The darkness was no comfort. The air was frosty and damp, and Razashûk wasn't used to sleeping at night when he was outside the caves. Worse yet, only a few feet away Durgrat was making some horrendously familiar noises, grunting along with a soft rhythmic slapping. Perhaps he thought Razashûk was asleep or perhaps he just didn't care, the important thing was that it was filling Razashûk with an intensely uncomfortable mix of sensations that made him want to flop over and slug Durgrat in the ribs. He pulled his blanket over his ears and held it there, squinting his eyes shut and hoping the combination of silence and cold would make his face stop burning.
Starting something over it and thus causing frustration seemed like a very bad idea. So far the big lummox had been surprisingly calm towards him, so Razashûk figured it was only a matter of time before the massive boiling cauldron of white-hot Uruk-hai rage he was undoubtedly repressing spilled over, and he would rather that happen when something or someone thwarted them.
He curled himself into a ball, still trying to adjust to the rough ground, and after Durgrat made one last long groan and fell quiet he found his irritation tempered by a twinge of sympathy for him and his kin. No mother but the earth, and no father but a voice on the wind. How were they supposed to know not to act like turds?
Just when he felt his eyelids begin to droop, Durgrat rolled over on his side and stared at him.
"Razashûk?"
"What."
"Do you know any songs?" he asked. "It's one of those things, you know?" He let out a short sigh at Razashûk's blank expression. "Nobody ever quite got around to explaining singing. I mean, I understand what it is, just not why anyone would do that on purpose."
"Uh. Well. Songs have the purpose of um, telling a story or expressing a thought by using..." He felt like a child kissing up to one of the scribes, trying to look smart by parroting things he didn't quite grasp. "Look, I'll just sing you one, all right?"
That was also a very bad idea.
It didn't help that on top of having a voice like a wagonload of gravel being carted over a bumpy hill, the only proper songs Razashûk knew were about things like getting stabbed in the gut, or being taunted by ghosts while buried alive under an avalanche, or bleeding out in a cold wet ditch after the town guards spotted you and shot you, and you'd only gone near the village in the first place because you were dying of starvation and had already picked over the bones of the only person you'd ever truly loved.
"Thanks, I think," said Durgrat. His face looked none too grateful, and Razashûk laughed.
"Pfft! I'm no songbird. We've never been ones for that sort of thing, not where I'm from. I doubt it explained much."
"No, it did. I see how it'd ease your burden to sing, because it makes everyone else just as miserable as you are."
You might just be all right after all, Razashûk thought.
Razashûk awoke to the pain of sunlight, and hastily stuffed away everything while wearing his threadbare blanket like a cloak in a vain attempt to stave it off. As he expected, there was a rough trail cutting through the edge of the forest nearby, and he shuffled towards it. "Come on, it's either go through here or eat dirt." Or me. Best not to even joke about it...
Durgrat apparently was in no mood to argue, perhaps cowed by the possibility of another round of traditional Orkish singing. He hissed through his teeth and trudged in, his hands balled into fists. After a few minutes of unenthusiastic survival, Razashûk was about to finally get his chance to be on the giving end of an "I told you so" when the Uruk stopped and glanced around.
"Did you hear that?"
Razashûk brushed him off. "That's just forest stuff. There's supposed to be annoying little noises everywhere, from lizards and squirrels and all that."
They pressed onward, but the fragile calm was shattered when he tripped and felt something snag around his legs. The Uruk also thudded to the ground, though only one of his ankles had gotten tangled up in a crude snare.
"Squirrels, huh," said Durgrat.
"Toll collector!" a high, raspy voice crooned. Razashûk twitched at the sound. The voice's owner dropped out of the canopy and scrambled down a tree trunk into view, and he made a pained grimace at the sight.
"You've got to be fucking joking."