A long-overdue update. I finally finished my degree so I'll have a little more time to write for fun now, hopefully.

The overcast sky was blustery and humid, wind zipping through the treetops and making a range of distracting noises. Durgrat did his best to ignore them as he followed Razashûk's lead, stepping around suspicious spots and dents in the dusty ground beneath their feet.

They approached a small gap in the trees where the dead grass looked well-trod. "Wait," Razashûk said through gritted fangs. Durgrat opened his mouth but just jolted back when he saw the reason why, lumbering near a low patch of brambles at the edge of the clearing.

Its fur was a pale, warm grey with a few sandy splotches standing out across its back. The creature wasn't shaped quite like any of the Wargs that Razashûk had seen. Its body was a bit bulkier and lower to the ground than he recognized, and he figured it must be some obscure breed that didn't care for the cold of the mountains.

He hissed and clicked his teeth a few times in quick succession. The Warg narrowed its eyes, then snuffled and let out a short yelp.

Durgrat grabbed Razashûk's upper arm, squeezing uncomfortably hard. "What is wrong with you? Why are you letting it know where we are?" he whispered.

"I'm not afraid of Wargs," said Razashûk with a hint of a disdainful scowl. "I know how to talk to them."

"That would have been nice to know before it came over," Durgrat snapped. "Couldn't you have howled at it to piss off and leave us alone?"

"It's not that simple. You've got to get a read on it, you know? They're quite sharp-witted. It isn't like whistling at songbirds just to mess with them. I've met Wargs that are smarter than some people."

The creature inhaled deeply and took several cautious steps closer to the Orcs. It barked, letting out a few short bursts of noise followed by one long snarl, teeth bared.

Razashûk turned towards Durgrat. "That was as close as possible to a friendly warning. She's a bit peeved we've wandered into her turf," he said. "But she's not hurting for food, and killing us would cause too much of a ruckus. I doubt she's the only dangerous creature around, and I don't think she wants extra attention any more than we do." He turned back toward the Warg and growled a couple times, rumbling oddly in his throat. "I told her we won't take anything we don't need." He lowered his voice. "We're lucky she doesn't have any pups right now, or this would be a very different story." The Warg made a low grumble, and the message was clear even to Durgrat: I can hear you, you know.

Razashûk was confident she posed no real danger, and simply wanted to make her presence known to them. Still, he knew they needed to be careful. Wargs were social creatures, and depended on each other. Where one appeared, there were undoubtedly more lurking in the shadows.

The Warg turned and ambled away, apparently having better things to do than make sure they didn't do anything stupid. Durgrat stared as the creature vanished back into the scenery. "I never thought of them as something that could be negotiated with. You'd see them once in a while in Isengard, 'cause Sharkey hired mercenaries who rode them. I always kept my distance. They seemed like their reason to live was to tear your legs out from under you."

"These are wild Wargs we're dealing with," said Razashûk. "They're not some creepy old fucker's attack dogs. They've got better things to do than roll over in servitude. Nobody's going to say 'good boy' and throw extra scraps at them for killing us."

"You know a lot about Wargs," said Durgrat.

"They're just part of life in the Misty Mountains. My family had one around when I was little. He took a liking to me, and spending so much time around him, I learned his speech, as it were." A faint smile spread across Razashûk's face. Listening to Groth and realizing he had picked up the patterns in the tone and cadence of the Warg's noises was one of the bright points of his childhood. Not only had the powerful creature chosen him, he was in on something hardly anyone else around was. Wargs could be bribed or trained into following commands easily enough, but truly understanding one was something else entirely.

"You lot kept it on purpose? And talked to it and everything?" Durgrat titled his head in bemusement.

He nodded. "Groth, we called him. This big dark grey thing covered in scars. You could tell he was a fighter, but I think his fighting days were long behind him by the time he found us. He just wandered in one particularly cold rainy evening and nobody told him to leave. My father would frown and say, 'You're not feeding that shitty old mongrel, are you?' and we'd tell him no while wiping the blood and grease from the morsels off our hands. We liked to think he was our personal guard, but fortunately he never had to prove himself."

"What happened to him?"

"Like I said, he was old. One day he just went to sleep and never woke up. My mother made his hide into clothes and things for us. My youngest sister's son has her old coat now, since she was tiny back then." Razashûk's face fell slightly and he looked aside. "I don't have my stuff anymore. I dropped one of my mittens into a ravine, and I traded the belt for a shiny copper bracelet that I gave to a lad who it turns out didn't like jewelry and really didn't like me."

Durgrat snorted, failing to completely squelch his amusement. Razashûk rolled his eyes. "Anyway," the Orc continued, "She won't bother us if we don't bother her. Best to just keep our distance and move along."

They hadn't gone far when Razashûk suggested they stop and rest. The clouds gathered in spotted rows as the sky darkened, and something nearby had him on edge and fidgeting.

"What's so special about this spot?" asked Durgrat.

"I heard something interesting earlier, after the wind died down. Wait here, and be quiet."

Durgrat crouched by the thicket and watched Razashûk make his way toward a particularly tall and battered tree, the mottled, splintered bark of its trunk only occasionally interrupted by an equally straight and worn branch. At the very top was a dark mass of twigs and brambles, almost comically conspicuous against the bare limbs it was nestled against. Razashûk climbed towards it and took a glance at the middle, then darted out one arm into the tangle and drew back just as quickly, barely rustling the foliage. He scampered down the tree trunk looking very pleased with himself, and when he met the ground he returned to Durgrat and unfurled the long scrap of hide nestled against him, securing his prize in place.

It was a massive egg, big enough that he needed both hands to hold it securely, pale yellow with dull green spots all over it. Durgrat took a moment to admire it, running his fingers along the smooth surface of its shell, before it was snatched away from him again. Razashûk had unearthed a dingy iron pot from the bottom of his pack, and was about to crack the egg on the edge of it when Durgrat lunged at him and landed with a dull thud as Razashûk quickly rolled to the side.

"Don't break it!"

"Why?" Razashûk let out an exasperated gasp and he jerked his arms, still clutching the intact egg, into the air away from the Uruk.

"It could hatch into an amazing monster!" Blurry memories of illustrations he'd seen while surreptitiously flipping through the dusty stacks of Saruman's library swirled through his head. Quite a few of them had been depicted sitting on colossal glittering hoards of gold and gems.

"Or it could just rot in your bag, break when you stumble, and stink up everything it touches," said Razashûk. "Even on the off chance it is a monster that somehow lives in a nest that looks exactly like an eagle's, complete with stray eagle feathers stuck in it, it's a bit small to be anything amazing."

Durgrat furrowed his brow. True, he couldn't recall any creature in those arcane etchings that was both deeply impressive and small enough for him to carry. And such a thing would be just another mouth to feed, his empty stomach reminded him with a sharp squeeze. Once again, Razashûk's fancy mountain-Orc education had shut him up.

"Look, aren't you at least glad for something to shove down your craw besides withered potatoes?"

Durgrat gave a petulant shrug. He righted himself as casually as possible and pretended to look away at something fascinating in the sky while Razashûk smacked the egg against the edge of the pot. An odd mix of relief and disappointment washed over him as he saw out of the corner of his eye that there was nothing inside except a gigantic, deep yellow yolk surrounded by perfectly ordinary slime.

The egg cooked quickly despite its size, and the Orcs bolted down the lumpy yellow mess Razashûk had expertly crafted. Durgrat licked his hand. Any lingering visions of a tamed baby serpent sniffing out treasure and leading them to victory dissolved into the void as the heavy warmth of the egg hit his stomach.

"You're right. That was..." The Uruk was rudely interrupted by a huge black shape swooping towards them. Both Orcs snapped their necks up in unison.

"Ah, shit!" said Razashûk. "I thought it would be gone longer."

Durgrat didn't have to ask what it was. The eagle's form was highlighted by the dying embers, its pale yellow eyes glittering with fury as it dove towards them.

Durgrat picked up a hefty dead branch from the ground nearby and began swinging, narrowly missing the eagle a few times, but mostly widely missing it. He snarled. "Fuck off, would you?! There's probably millions of you out there plopping your eggs all over the place, and only a few of us left." The beast answered with a long, piercing shriek and grazed Durgrat's forearm with its talons before flapping away from the Uruk's flailing reach.

Razashûk was faring slightly better, having grabbed his bow and found a hidden spot slightly above ground in the foliage. He narrowed his eyes and took aim. The arrow zipped through the air in a slight arc and plunged into the crook of the eagle's wing. It screeched again, this time ragged and warbling, as it shook its injured appendage while doing its best to stay aloft. The arrow worked loose and fell to the ground, and Razashûk cursed under his breath.

"Fine, be that way! Don't say we didn't try reasoning with you!" Durgrat yelled. One of his frantic swats finally connected and threw the eagle off balance, giving him just enough time to roll away ineffectively and flinch in terror as it came back down at him, claws-first, snapping its razor beak.

Just as Razashûk felt a panicked wail squeeze itself out of his lungs, another sound overpowered it. He jerked his head in its direction, eyes wide. The she-Warg they'd run into earlier emerged from the shadows, accompanied by half a dozen more, jaws gnashing and voices growling.

Durgrat dropped the branch and shuffled away from the pack as they circled the eagle. One especially large Warg briefly got ahold of its wing and left a nasty gouge. Another snapped its leg in its jaws and only let go when the eagle threatened to try and take the Warg up in the air with it.

There was no safe place for it to land, and the raptor had no choice but to return to its nest in the canopy, wounded and exhausted, wobbling lopsided in the air as it shook its damaged wing. The Wargs followed, leaping and clawing at the bottom of the tree while howling and barking in a cacophonous rhythm.

"Thank you!" Razashûk yelped as he left his hiding place, then realizing his faux pas, he repeated himself in their tongue, snarling through his teeth while lowering himself in deference. He reached into his pack and set down a handful of bones with some remnants of meat and marrow stuck to them, and a couple of potatoes for good measure, on the ground in front of him, then backed away and rejoined his companion. The Wargs fell quiet and bowed their blocky heads towards him in recognition.

"Pfft. You said they were too good for helping and nobody was going to reward them with scraps," said Durgrat.

Razashûk just returned the Uruk's smirk. "They must be very special, then." Durgrat nodded, no stranger to the power of flattery.

Razashûk knelt to retrieve his arrow and then motioned for Durgrat to follow him. "Let's not outstay our welcome." With a last look at the Warg pack, he whistled and let out a series of barks, then turned back towards the dark expanse stretching before them.

"That was intense," said Razashûk, doing his best to keep his breath deep and steady and calm his still-rattling pulse.

"Right?! I almost pissed myself. But I didn't."

Razashûk laughed. "I'm glad you survived, unsoiled. For now." He could feel his sneering armor already cracking under Durgrat's gaze, and didn't resist when the Uruk slung an arm around him and rested it on his shoulder as they walked. The weight and warmth was reassuring, a tangible reminder they were both still in one piece. For now.