CHAPTER EIGHT

For to avoid confusion and eschew obsfication and otherwise pendantically clarify things:

There are a lot of characters here, all of them young and female. This can be a bit bewildering until you get to know said characters. For now, a quick summary, in order of appearance:

Tuima – an Elf. Cool, competent, and arrogant as nine cats.

Dilly – sarcastic, stubborn, and practical. Has long dark hair and a stoic expression.

Eredolyn – a fanatic. Short auburn hair and a great deal too much enthusiasm.

Eicys – Cebu's little sister. Brave, forthright, optimistic, and in this waay over her head.

Cebu – cheerful, sympathetic, and just generally Nice. A fanatical Frodo Fancier with hair like an orange gone nova.

Wilore – A Rohirric girl with an unpronouncable name and a simmering – if not outright boiling – temper. Heck, the pot lid's probably leaving dents in the ceiling.

With that out of the way… on with the show!

Eicys, in the finest traditions of the lost and bewildered, followed the largest group of… people… into the nearest building. It was little more than an oversized shack, really – as inexpertly constructed as a kid's tree house, and as pungent as an uncleaned outhouse.

Apparently it was the mess hall. Orcs of various shapes and sizes packed the room, shouting, snarling, squabbling, and stuffing their faces. Eicys was ravenous, but the combination of noise and smell twisted her stomach, and a glimpse of the main course – a scummy sort of stew full of greyish lumps – soon had her backing out of the room with a hand over her mouth. No dinner tonight, then. She would find a secluded spot to sleep, and in the morning she'd wake up, safe and clean, in her own bed at home. Probably.

Maybe.

Please?

She wandered around, avoiding eye contact and trying to look as though she had important business wherever the orcs were not. It was difficult to make herself hurry; she'd been running around since nightfall, and it was past dawn. And Murgash's armor was heavy. She was almost ready to just drop down where she stood when she discovered a black stone pillar with a White Hand on top and a sort of hollow at its base. Eicys crammed her helmet a little further over her eyes and gave her smelly old jerkin a few tugs, making sure it hid her t-shirt. Then she curled up at the base of the pillar and was asleep even before her eyes had finished closing.

She was lucky. The others, drunk on a cocktail of exhaustion, dread, and disbelief, were currently standing in a rather pathetic huddle in front of the Istar Curunir, also known as Saruman the Wise. He was regarding them as any power-hungry deluded Maia might – that is to say, with utmost contempt, flavored with a dash of long-suffering and the merest smidgeon of hope that they wouldn't waste yet more of his precious time.

"Woah," Eredolyn murmured to no one in particular. "He looks even better than Christopher Lee. Check out the Many Colors schpiel with the robes."

Saruman, who was indeed dressed in the opalescent garments described by Tolkien, narrowed his eyes at Eredolyn. She stared unabashedly back at him.

"I am told," said the wizard, "that one of you may be in posession of… Information." The capital I was plainly audible in his deep voice. A shiver shook through the Immies: that voice was the vocal equivalent of solid gold – rich, smooth, polished, and cold. It could make mere soundwaves do tricks that were usually accomplished by exotic multi-point fonts and painstaking calligraphy.

Cebu's lips parted slightly; Eredolyn's eyes went round with awe and admiration. Wilore, who was being held in a headlock some distance away (it was the only way to make her stop attacking people) squirmed frantically and tried to cover her ears.

Tuima took a deep breath. "I'm afraid you were misinformed," she said.

"Really?" Saruman sounded amused. "I haven't even told you what kind of information I believe you to have."

"We wouldn't know anything that could be of use to you," said Tuima. "We're strangers in this area."

"So I see," said Saruman. "Such exotic clothing! These mortals must have come from far away indeed. And it is always unusual to meet an Elf – and a female at that – who dares show even a nose outside their precious sanctuaries." Tuima's expression curdled with suppressed fury. Saruman smiled. "No," he said, "I think you will prove very interesting indeed."

"We could have nothing to say that someone of your wisdom and experience does not already know," said Tuima, biting off the compliments as though they hurt her mouth.

"That is quite likely," said Saruman. "But perhaps I might have something to say that you do not know?"

Tuima looked at him warily.

"You believe," said the wizard, "that a certain Object, currently in the posession of a Halfling and under the protection of my deluded colleague Mithrandir, is going to bring victory to the men of the West. But did you know that I have already dispatched an army to retrieve that Object? They met the Halfling's company near Amon Hen. Your hope has failed."

Tuima went very still. Her face had turned a pale, ashy grey.

Dilly folded her arms. "If that's true," she said, bluffing as only Dilly could bluff, "then what do you need us for?"

"Because the Uruk-Hai never came back," said Eredolyn, grinning. "The Rohirrim killed them, remember? I love that scene."

"Hah!" cried Wilore, grinning fiercely. And then, when she saw Saruman's expression of baffled fury, she added a few gleeful – and from the tone, probably obscene – words in Rohirric. Saruman nodded curtly to an orc. "Kill her," he said.

The orc pulled out a dented blade. The Immies blanched. Eredolyn jerked forward slightly.

"No – wait," said Saruman to the orc. "That would defeat the purpose, really. She is quite anxious for an honorable death. Throw her in the dungeons instead."

Wilore froze.

The orc sheathed his sword and grabbed her arm.

And then Wilore unfroze, rather explosively. "No!" she shrieked. "No, no, no!" She kicked sideways and back, like a horse, and struck the shin of the orc who had her in the headlock. He swore and loosened his grip enough for Wilore to wiggle free, whirl around, and –

-- have her arms forced behind her back by two more orcs, who began to haul her from the room. Wilore threw herself back and forth, kicking madly, screaming in Rohirric. "I won't go!" she yelled frantically, her face almost demented with panic. "I won't, I won't go!"

Her shrieks echoed down the corridor as three orcs finally managed to drag her off, still struggling like a madwoman.

Cebu made a little noise in the back of her throat, like a small animal caught in a trap. Dilly's Stoic expression had solidified to the point where her face might have been carved out of stone, but her eyes flickered back and forth frantically, looking for a way out.

There wasn't one, of course. There were at least two orcs for each girl, and Dilly was cynica – practical enough to doubt that so many guards were actually even necessary. Sure, Ere was a black belt in karate, and Tuima had seemed moderately competent with a knife – back when she had a knife – but these orcs had armor. And swords.

As though reading her mind, Saruman leant forward in his black stone chair, smiling very slightly. It was the look a cat might give an arthritic mouse found nibbling on the contents of a bowl marked Kitty.

…Yeah, the Immies were in it knee-deep, now.

LCLCLCLCLCLC

"Wake up, you." The grating voice was accompanied by a sharp jab to the ribs. Eicys opened her eyes.

Through the ensuing crush of shock and panic, some small detached bit of her struggled to reassert sanity: this was obviously a dream, it told her. Or rather, a nightmare. There was no way a face that horrible could exist in real life.

The monster prodded her again. Nope, not dreaming. Oh no oh no ohnonono… She struggled to her feet, pressing her back hard into the safety of the pillar.

"What're y' doin' ou' here?" the orc demanded of her. He was huge, the biggest uruk she'd ever seen. He must have been eight feet tall.

"Uh…" said Eicys, her brain grinding frantically into the appropriate gear. "Sleeping." She cursed inwardly; her mental throttle seemed to have gotten stuck on 'Park'.

"Yeah…" he growled, slowly and deliberately. He left the end of the word wide open: Why?

Another gear clonked into place in the whirring, panicking chaos of Eicys' mind. "It's quieter out here," she said.

His eyebrows went up. Eicys stared. Her thought processes obviously still very much under par, she blurted out, "Hey – Your eyes don't match!" They didn't. They were perfectly normal brown eyes, and therefore looked bizarrely out of place in his brutal face.

"Really?" he snarled. He seized her collar, and Eicys, with a throb of terror, felt her feet leave the ground. "Is tha' a prob–" He stopped. "You don' smell righ'," he said suspiciously.

Eicys froze. She looked up into his face, blue eyes wide with horror. The uruk's eyes widened as well, and he dropped her abruptly: Eicys fell flat, clumsy with unwieldy armor. The orc waited for her to look up at him again, his massive arms folded across his chest.

"Your eyes don' match, either," he said.

A frantic Eicys took her cue from his earlier reaction. "So?" she snapped.

He gave her a shrewd look. Eicys felt almost annoyed: orcs were supposed to be stupid! But the uruk just drummed his claws on his scimitar hilt, grimaced to himself – Eicys shivered at the glint of fangs – and, miracle of miracles, waved her back towards the tower. "An' y'll be sleepin' in th' barracks wi' th' res' of 'em from now on, got it?" he called as she fled.

It was barely noon, but Eicys didn't think she'd be able to go back to sleep, even if she found the barracks. Especially if she found the barracks, come to think of it. What she needed was a plan.

No, what she needed was a White Hand marking. Then she could get into the tower and make a better plan.

Scratch that, too. What she really needed was breakfast. The mess hall was definitely out, as far as she was concerned. So that left… the tower.

Back to square one. How to get one of those symbols?

Hmm…

Eicys grinned. Maybe she would head over to the barracks after all…