Disclaimer: I do not own anything related to the Lord of the Rings.
"My father didn't come home from the war empty handed. He brought with him a peculiar keepsake.
A living, breathing Uruk-hai.
When asked what madness possessed him to acquire such a …. thing, my father always said that honorable and faithful allies could be found anywhere.
Honorable and faithful, indeed. And so much more."
Elfleda, Éomer's daughter
-/-
Clash of swords. Groans of the wounded and dying. Desperate roars of the few Uruk-hai who were still fighting. Triumphant shouts from the Rohirrim.
An ugly defeat at the edge of Fangorn. Saruman won't put his greedy, white hands on any halflings. At least not this time.
Uglúk looked around wearily.
The faint light of dawn illuminated the battlefield and glinted on the blades of the four straw-heads who were rushing at him. The Uruk sidestepped the first one and stabbed the man in the gut. He twisted the blade for good measure, then yanked it out. The man crumpled to the ground, whining, his bowels tumbling out through the tear in his chain mail.
He cut the second one almost in half. The torso didn't even collapse, he already stabbed another in the stomach. His sword got stuck. He kicked the man in the gut to free the blade.
The fourth horseman was approaching, his blade poised towards the Uruk's chest. The dawn cast a red glow on his leather armor.
"Die, beast!" he spat and swung his sword. Uglúk dodged, grabbed the blade and with brute strength impaled the man on his own sword hilt. The stench of intestines mixed with the coppery tang of blood. Red was soaking the dewy grass.
Uglúk staggered. He was dead on his feet. Black blood dripped from his shredded fist. He shook his sweaty mane out of his eyes and looked around again.
His lads lay all dead or dying around him.
The last Uruk-hai stood alone in the sea of men.
"Who'll be next, maggots?" he growled in a guttural, deep voice.
"I shall be your last opponent!" a young, yet commanding voice answered Uglúk's challenge. A tall man with a white horse tail on his helmet stepped forward.
The man was not a stranger to Uglúk. Every last pizurk knew that damn horse-lord. Éomer, third marshal of the Riddermark.
"What a fucking honor!" Uglúk sneered.
With bared teeth, he charged.
But his boots slipped in a puddle of blood.
Uglúk lost his balance for a moment. Éomer's very first stab found its way between his leather armor and pauldron. His collarbone cracked under the blade. Uglúk groaned, almost dropping his sword. With his left he grabbed the man's throat, but Éomer freed himself. The boy was strong, he must give him that.
The duel – his last? – continued.
Uglúk didn't know how long he danced to the ever-changing rhythm of death. The blood pouring from his shoulder was running down his chest under the armor, sticky and warm. His right arm slowly but steadily grew weaker, blood loss was dulling the morning light around him. The sword almost slipped from his numb hand. His vision was getting blurred, but he didn't care.
He charged high, tearing the muscles in his injured shoulder further apart. Through a red haze he saw Éomer parry and thrust. He blocked, but there was not enough strength left in the movement. The man's blade ran clean through his left thigh. Uglúk's sword fell to the ground.
He was beaten and he knew it.
Despite the pain, with a fierce snarl he proudly straightened and stared Éomer in the eye.
"Come on whiteskin! Finish it!"
But the killing-blow never came.
The third marshal of the Riddermark had another idea.
-/-
The creature was quite horrendous. His muscle-bound, giant frame and brutish face evoked fear in those who saw him. But the most dreadful thing about the Uruk-hai was his piercing, pale white gaze, tracking everything and everyone with bestial intensity.
Albeit the Uruk had been badly wounded by Éomer's blade, he recovered unnaturally fast. By the time Gandalf led the éored to King Théoden's aid, he was almost fully healed. No horse could bear the Uruk's closeness, so he had no choice but to run the whole way to the Hornburg. Éomer's men later swore that the Uruk could keep up with the horses even in full gallop.
In the battle of Helm's Deep the Uruk fulfilled his blood oath mercilessly. He slaughtered his brethren with such ruthless ferocity, he made even seasoned warriors throw up. The Rohirrim wanted to put him down like a rabid dog, but the fact he had saved Éomer's life at least three times that day, stayed their hands.
After the battle Éomer declared him free to go, but the Uruk just shrugged a broad shoulder and said:
"You spared my life. You can't set me free. My oath bounds me for life."
"What's your name?" asked Éomer after a minute of thought.
"Uglúk."
"Alright."
And that was that.
-/-
So it happened that a lone Uruk-hai fought among the ranks of the free people of Middle-Earth as the living shield of the heir to the throne of Rohan.
Uglúk was there when Sauron fell. With a bleeding nose and a splitting headache he roared with unhinged laughter.
When they had crowned Éomer the eighteenth king of Rohan, and Uglúk finally fell under the table the next morning, he was blind drunk. And secretly proud.
He was there when Éomer married Lothíriel of Dol Amroth. As he stood behind the groom, he could barely look at the bride, in shame, seeing himself ugly for the first time in his life.
Then Éomer's first child was born. A little princess.
Elfleda.
Uglúk wasn't impressed. She was tiny, wrinkly, and red in the face. Nothing like the "noble beauty" her name suggested.
But when she looked at him for the first time, she smiled. That toothless baby smile and those trusting, periwinkle blue eyes did something to him, and the Uruk-hai could not breathe for a moment. The monster in the back of his mind cowered. He gained a new master.
And the years began to pass….
