Uglúk returned to their hideout two hours later. A successful hunt cooled his ire and now he was the one with questions.

Except the girl was not there to answer.

As he stared at the empty cave, Uglúk's stomach fell to his knees. The two dead rabbits slipped from his suddenly numb hand. Where was she? Had something happened to her? Panic gripped him for a moment. But Uglúk forced his muscles to move, his body to turn, and stepped out of the cave.

He quickly found her trail, leading away, into the woods. There was no other scent overlapping hers. She had gone alone. She hadn't been attacked or kidnapped. She had just left him.

A howl wanted to crawl up Uglúk's throat, but he swallowed it back. The rage following the pain, he didn't bother to suppress. With the deadly grace and speed of a predator he sprinted after his Lyth.

It didn't take much time to catch up with her, she didn't get too far yet.

Less than half a mile away, in a little clearing, he saw the girl.

There she stood, picking blackberries from a bramble. Picking fucking blackberries!

Uglúk stopped dead in his tracks, panting, chest heaving. His eyes told him she was there, his nose told him she was there, but it was not enough. He wanted – no, he needed – to touch her, to feel…

Without any thought Uglúk ran to Nindelyth, grabbed her arms, and yanked her to him. He held her in a death grip and, leaning down, buried his face into her hair. Her soft skin under his calloused palms, her scent in his lungs soothed the seething fury of his heart. As he gradually calmed, he finally felt it…

Nindelyth was clinging to him, with her frail arms around his waist. One of her tiny, cool palms splayed on his scarred hide, her other fist was closed around a handful of berries. She hid her face in his chest, and she was muttering something. ("You came back. You came back.") Her voice was muffled, barely audible, but Uglúk's hearing was not of a man. And that damned fear stench was nowhere to be found. She fairly radiated that sweet, beckoning scent that warmed his entire body and made his knees buckle.

When his mind decided to work again, he rasped into her ear:

"You thought I left you?"

"You… didn't?"

"No! I thought you did."

When the girl in his arms emitted a strained giggle, Uglúk found that the whole turmoil was worth it.

What the pits was happening to him?

-/-

Nindelyth popped the last of the blackberries into her mouth. She wanted to share it with her companion, but he just looked at her like she had grown a second head and muttered something along the lines of "Who needs that sweet shit?".

Now she was trudging in the wake of the Uruk back to their cave. Despite – or because of – the fruit she had consumed, Nindelyth felt faint with hunger and thirst. She couldn't remember the last time she had drunk something.

They were almost there when the Uruk… Uglúk… suddenly raised his arm, bent in the elbow, hand in a fist. Not knowing what the signal meant – or that it was a signal at all – Nindelyth walked right into his back as he stopped in his tracks. With a low, irritated grunt Uglúk grabbed her arm and pulled her down into a crouch. "Quiet!" he hissed.

Nindelyth peaked through the bushes but saw nothing.

Then suddenly two creatures emerged from the cave. They were hunched over, arms hanging almost to the ground, clad in crude leather and furs. One of them held a long scimitar, the other was tearing into a dead rabbit with uneven, yellow teeth. (Uglúk silently snarled at the sight.) Looking at the malformed, ugly faces Nindelyth shuddered with revulsion. They must be orcs.

The orcs were examining Uglúk's and Nindelyth's footprints on the soft soil with great interest. Even Nindelyth could tell the moment they picked up her scent. They exchanged a greedy grin; their posture took up a predatory tension and the older, gnarlier one said something on their tongue. Two other orcs appeared.

By now the Uruk beside her was quivering with bloodlust.

When the four orcs started following the trail (which would lead them directly to Nindelyth in less than a minute), Uglúk turned to her:

"Stay and hide!" he growled.

Nindelyth squatted behind a dense bush with bated breath. Her wide, frightened eyes didn't leave the green ribbon in the Uruk's hair.

Uglúk didn't bother with stealth, he simply strutted up to the others.

Upon seeing the hulking Uruk-hai the orcs balked for a moment, but it didn't take long for them to assess the situation. They overpowered the baalak four to one, and he didn't even have a sword or armor. Easy prey. Or they thought.

The gnarled orc –the apparent leader – barked an order and the others fanned out, surrounding the Uruk in an ever-tightening circle.

"You know who I am?" Uglúk asked in Westron, unbothered by the threat.

The orc leader opened his mouth to answer, his scimitar lowering an inch or two…

Uglúk launched at him. He moved so suddenly that Nindelyth flinched.

In one moment, the Uruk was standing in the middle of the ring, in the next he was sidestepping the gnarly orc's blade, grabbing him by the throat. With a roar he crushed the orc's windpipe, then yanked the scimitar out of the limp hand. He threw the twitching, convulsing body to the ground and rounded on the other three.

What Nindelyth witnessed in the following few minutes was carnage.

The Uruk-hai utilized his superior strength and speed against his smaller "cousins". He didn't really need the scimitar or his formal training from Isengard. He finished the orcs off with claws and teeth. When he knelt on the last one's belly and tore his clothes and flesh open, Nindelyth could hear the cracking of ribs under his fingers. When the orc's shrieks were cut short and the Uruk pulled a heart out of the mangled chest, Nindelyth turned away and threw up.

Her heaving couldn't quite mask the noisy chewing and satisfied grunts from the Uruk. Black spots appeared on the fringes of her vision and Nindelyth fainted. Her face almost landed in the puddle of vomit before her.

-/-

Uglúk was carrying the girl for the second time in two days.

After he had assuaged his bloodlust – and hunger – with the snaga meat, Uglúk plundered the corpses. He couldn't hope that any of their clothes would fit his frame, but the weapons he could use. So, two knives went into his boots, the scimitar on a long belt around his waist.

With sharply keeping his ears and nose on his surroundings, Uglúk divested the ugly, old fucker of his furs - the only clothing not drenched in blood. That will help keep the girl warm at night.

The girl.

Now, that his boiling blood didn't sing treacherous, tempting things ('She is yours to defend, she is yours to take…') in his ears anymore, he went in search of her.

He found Nindelyth lying on the ground unconscious.

Crouching next to her, Uglúk was gazing at her pale face, bloodless lips for a moment. She was fragile where he was sturdy; soft where he was rough. So weak. So young. How could she still wake such a hunger in him? A hunger that he didn't recognize but knew as more than lust. A hunger that made him crave her smile, her acceptance, her trust more than the delicate flesh between her legs.

With an exasperated shake of his head, Uglúk stored these unanswered questions with those nagging at him in the absence of the Master's whispering. ('What are you? Who are you? Where do you belong?')

With a sigh he gathered the girl's limp body into his arms and carried her to the stream he had discovered that morning.