Chapter 9

Miroku, Gimli, and the other remaining dwarves found a small cave to hid in as they were to exhausted to continue. They wouldn't of been able to make the entire quest to Pelargir in one day anyways. No food, No water, no horses, unwilling to dispose their weapons, didn't help either.

"So how do we get to Pelargir?" Miroku asked.

"We have to cross two rivers," Gimli replied, "If we follow the Harad road we'll cross the only bridge accross, but the other... We'll have to fnd a way accross".

"Taking a road at this point?" Miroku stated, "Is that the smartest thing to do?"

"Not really," Gimli replied, "Though we have no option".

"If looks like they lost our trail," Miroku answered.

"Not likely," Gimli replied, "We left them in confusion. Though they they will have regrouped and will be searching for us. They will likely be at the bridge waiting for us. There will also be a second group of them regaining our trail, and will be upon us in a short period of time. We likely be powerful enough to fight our way through the group at the bridge".

"We don't have to fight if we don't need to," Miroku said, "We can sneak accross the bridge at night. How long until we get there".

"We'll each Harad road in about a hour, and then it'll be about a days travel," Gimli replied, "We'll arrive at about noon tomorrow".

It was noon the next day.

"We should lay low until nightfall," Gimli stated quietly. They had arrived at the bridge, and as expected, there was a contingent of orks occupying the area. They were hiding inside a boulder that was barely within sight of the ork camp. They kept quiet and slept until night fall, regaining some of their energy.

"Miroku," Gimli said, quietly, "It's time".

Miroku grabbed his staff and they left the saftey of the boulders, and quietly moved towards the ork camp. Slowly going around the orks, Mirkou looked in and seen large beasts amoungst them.

"Warg riders," Gimli stated, "The chance of us making are slim".

They contined to the reached the river, and went towards the bridge. Hiding behind as much cover as possible. And they noticed something, something very annoying and impoosible to go around.

To reach the bridge they had to through the camp. The did have the ability to fight through the existing orks, though it would mean that the entire camp would know that their there. And they had no chance aganist those numbers.

"Miroku," Gimli said, "Do you have any ideas?"

"I may have one," Miroku answered, "But we need to reach the bridge first'.

"How are we to reach it in the first place?" Gimli asked.

Miroku knew how to stop them from following Gimli, the other dwarves, and himself. But he could only think of one action to get past them. "Listen when we to the bridge, get as far away as possible, do not concern yourself about me".

"Your sacrificing yourself won't help us in the least," Gimli snarled.

"I'm not going to sacrifice myself," Miroku answered, "I'm planning on living as much as you are. There is something that I'm capable of doing that will give us a couple hours to get away".

"That still doesn't give us away to get through them," Gimli stated.

"There is only one way I can think of," Miroku answered, "We'll have to move quickly, for we'll alert the entire camp. We fight our way to it".

Miroku was the first to go out of cover, he stayed quiet until he entered their camp, and was unkown to the orks until Miroku came into sight, and the fight quickly began. The orks struggling to get to their weapons, and the dwarves following behind Miroku. Smashing a route through the orks, not letting themsleves stop they continued on fighting. It didn't take that long for them to reach the bridge. Then again if they didn't quickly reach the bridge, they would of failed in reaching the bridge. Miroku proceeded to use to of his sutra's, placing them on the bridge. They worked as expected, the orks that tried to get past the barrier Miroku installed, merely bounced back. Though it wouldn't stop the archers from going around the barrier if they knew. And apparantly they didn't so Miroku thought he was safe for them time being from them. He turned around and at the other end of the bridge was something he didn't expect, there was a small group of warg riders waiting there. They didn't waste anytime looking at their enemy they just charged at Miroku, Gimli, and the small group of dwarves. The wargs snarled the entire charge, at least the ones that didn't recieve any sutras from Miroku. The ones who did, immediantly stopped any actions they had, and shortly after died. A couple wargs jumped over, and continued their charge. Gimli and Miroku had gotten out of the way, but the other dwarves were killed by the warg riders. Miroku and Gimli easily disposed of the warg riders once they bounced off the barrier.

"How do we get through that?" Gimli stated.

"We'll fight our way through them," Miroku said, "Those beasts a lot of the already, we just have to clean up".

Gimli and Miroku moved in slowly, wargs that hadn't been able to get past the wargs Miroku killed had crashed into each other had ended it with a huge impact, most wargs were injured, though only a few were killed by it. Most of the riders were killed though, Only a few didn't, and they were badly injured. Miroku and Gimli moved as quickly as they could, only killing what they had to. It disturbed them, having to climb over the bodies. Though they had gotten past it unharmed.

"Miroku, we have to get out of here," Gimli urged.

"I know," Miroku replied, "But that barrier that I had put up won't last long. It'll be worth while to set up a longer lasting barrier".

Miroku placed two sutras on top of the bridge, and two underneath the bridge. Using a somewhat lenghty spell on each sutra. It took about an hour to complete the barrier.

"There, that will hold for around a day," Miroku said, "And it isn't as flawed as the first one".