If the forest could be depressed, it would have looked the way it did that day. The greens were dull and dark, drooping like a wilting thing, and the rain that bent them pooled like tears on leafy cheeks. It was a sunless morning that good things wished would fade away.
But for those the light shunned away, that day was a welcome to stay. For it was only on those days that cried, that unsightly things could stir about. To fairer folk whom light endured, they were living wounds life itched to remove. Goblins, trolls, wargs and wolves.
Under those dreary sorrowed trees a pair of such dreadful folk dared to stay awake. Goblin-folk. Orcs. Twisted abominations of men as they were, they found that day their one small comfort.
One was larger than the other, but no taller than a dwarf. Pale, huge nostrils, and wrinkles that ran trenches across his face. There he sat, huddled beneath the cover of leaves. What water dripped was swept by the straw of his hat.
He was named Ukagg, and he had lived beyond the years most orcs could count. He carried with him the secret to his unusual years, and he had sworn an oath to share it. It was strapped to his back, wrapped in cloth for its own protection. It was a delicate thing, precious, and beyond the value of Ukagg's life. Yet without his hands, its beauty could not be known.
That was among the few things his companion understood. Despite their time together, Ukagg's gift was all the smaller one cared to live for.
She was a girl. A runt Ukagg had been burdened with during his travels. A child so small that even halflings would call her a pup. Olmog was her name, and she was a wild thing with skin as black as coal, and a nose so flat it seemed like serpentine slits. The girl's tangled hair hung unkempt all around her plum like head.
Beneath that mess of hair glowed two yellow eyes that stared wide with desperate obsession. The gift was the fixation of her unsettling gaze. She longed to hear it sing its strings.
"Master, play it again," she demanded.
"You're a greedy little thing, Olmog… Show me you've learned something, and maybe I'll consider," he told her.
"No! Do it now!"
"If you have nothing to offer, I have nothing to give."
It wasn't his typical response to deny one his gift, but he'd grown sore of her rudeness.
The orc girl grit her teeth and muttered foul things, but her hands searched a bag beside. She fumbled around until a wooden instrument came popping out. It was small and crude, and looked more like a toy. The square wooden body was attached to a long thin neck, and across the whole span were three hairy strings.
The girl eyed it with displeasure and threw the thing across her lap. She clutched a large wooden plectrum like a dagger, and in her opposite hand the neck of the instrument rested. A moment of stillness lingered between the two, meeting each other's eyes with the same anxious anticipation.
Then came a strike. Not a pluck, but a beating.
And another soon came. Not song, but torture.
They came without rhythm. Random, without beat. Plucked as a fiend would in mockery of music. The girl's eyes rolled and she swayed side to side. Babbling like words growled from her lips in mimicry of lyrics.
The farce went on, and the girl knew what was to come. A scolding, then a beating, and no dinner that evening. So anticipating her discomfort, Olmog's neck retreated. She stabbed at the strings, not grasping the point. It was madness to think she could ever make something pretty.
Smack.
The old orc's beating came before his insults, but not with a hand. A stone was cast from where he sat. It stunned the poor girl and she clutched her head from where she bruised. The older one didn't bother to give her a glance. Rather, his head hung low casting a scowl at the mud.
Olmog took a sharp breath to prepare for a whine, but it was cut short, staggered into gasps as more stones came. He hit her shoulder, her gut. He didn't stop until the girl had scurried out of sight. She wept like a baby in the cover of a dreary tree.
Every day he'd tried to make that girl learn, but the girl was unlearnable. He cursed her for it, and he cursed himself for allowing that runt to give him hope. He was old, too old, and he'd wasted the time he had left on that foolish child.
"Stinkin' runt! I should have let them feed you to the wolves!" he shouted where she lay.
But her weeping no longer came from that place. There was only the sound of rain and a creeping fear. Old age for an orc only came to those with the strongest sense of danger.
"Olmog?"
Whack.
His vision went black for a moment, and pain pounded the temple of his head. When he recovered his awareness he was sideways in the mud. That girl stood a few paces away. A bundle of rocks was cradled in a sack made from the hem of her skirt. Another stone was raised in her hand. She snarled so that her face was as ugly as her temper.
Bang, and crack. Her next stone came with a thunder.
The old orc shrieked and shivered as more pain came. It wasn't terror that he felt, but fury for her treachery. A darkness within had at last been revived, and the cruelness of his nature found its way back. Decades upon decades of unlearning evil had undone, and before he knew it he had the girl on her back. She clawed and chomped at the arm that pinned her, and her teeth gnashed with menace that equaled a rabid mutt.
There was nothing left between them but savagery, a scene as normal between orcs as an elf singing songs. Olmog scrambled like a dog, her wildness turning to desperation as the old orc's free hand shadowed her with a stone. It was long, narrow, nearly as sharp as an arrowhead.
Ukagg was ready to kill Olmog. She was worthless, even amongst her own. A weak thing that had been cast out, and now Ukagg felt that they were right to do so. It wouldn't have been a crime to any if he'd spilled her blood like a pig.
But the old orc hesitated.
The stone stayed hovering, shaking. His breaths gradually slowed and deepened second by second. The child matched each breath. Slowly, and painfully. Her eyes held shut with tears. Her limbs limp in submission to her fate. Ukagg knew that face she wore. The pain in one's heart that stings deeper than spears. A hopelessness that felt eternal. It was the pain of clinging to life in a world that had long since abandoned you.
Ukagg had remembered once more. He'd made a promise.
"Share this gift with them too," that man, his master, had requested in his final hour.
He vowed that it would be done. He wouldn't have returned to the west for any other reason. Ukagg wasn't there to wither away bitterly and selfishly, nor die hateful and cursing. He was there for that child, and all others like her.
The stone made a thud as it landed beside the girl's head.
The old orc cowered away from the child in shame. She stayed sprawled in the mud, and neither said a word. Slowly, the old one took that gift from his back and unwrapped it from its cloth.
There in his palms was an instrument. It was not a kind that had been seen in that world. It was lute, like the one the girl had held, but so unlike it as well. Where hers was crude, his was masterful. A smooth and seamless shape stained dark and glossy, strung with fine silky strings that shimmered in the rain. The thing he'd crafted for the girl was merely a twisted imitation.
He wept as he felt his old master's final wish in his hands. The child had no blame if he could not grant her an instrument worthy of playing. It was as fairer folk so often said, that orcs made no beautiful things. With one hand on the ebony neck and the other on a large plectrum of ivory, he began to make something beautiful.
It didn't escape the rain, he wouldn't have wished for it to. That song was only meant for ears that prayed to hear it. The girl in the mud had only ever prayed. Now she had her answer. She calmed until she was tranquil. Droplets of water washed her red pain away so that her black skin could be bare to the world again. The plucks continued, and Olmog's face looked tender and soft.
To Olmog's ears that lute was death and heaven all wrapped up into one.
It was a voice stronger than any wizard's. A command more compelling than a dark lord's terror. That lute could change the world, or so the old orc's master had dreamt. For in the many millennia their kind endured, it offered what none had ever offered before.
Comfort.
Ukagg had once pondered to his master, "I've never loved the beauty offered by elves, nor man or dwarf. Why does your song touch me where other beauty fails?"
"Because I've played this song for you," the man replied.
He had tried to understand that man, but for an orc to comprehend what they've never known is beyond folly. In the years after that great man's passing, Ukagg had tried to feel that comfort again. Strum and pluck, he played and played. But he wept that he could not make the beauty he had once known it make.
In the days that came, Ukagg did not urge the girl to practice her craft. He had little time left, and he had resigned to giving that child warmth while he still could. Still, she played the crude instrument he'd given her, mimicking his songs and humming his tunes. There were moments, few as they were, that she didn't sound so awful to Ukagg's ears.
The sun broke light and the rain had ended, and yet Ukagg did not wince under the brightness. You see, he hadn't noticed the change. In the forest, the flowers, and the splendour of color, he had forgotten to scowl. More than that, he'd forgotten to hate.
It was the girl, the way she strode without fear. The sun and its hatred beat on her skin, but she defied its fury and claimed in it her place. Ukagg couldn't help but feel amazed. Again, he was reminded why he placed that lute in her hands. She was tiny, weak, but made of far stronger blood than his.
"To face the darkness, one must be brave enough to stand in the light," Ukagg's master had said. It was those words that urged him to come out from the shadows.
And finally greet the only man he would mourn.
He never expected to find that bravery in the world of the west, but there it was, standing in God's light in defiance of its scorn. That was true strength, and that strength was called Uruk-hai.
But others stood in that light as well, and most did not welcome such bravery to enter. Ukagg had been so lost in thoughts that he'd forgotten to fear that. It wasn't until it met his ears that he felt a warning chill.
Song.
Elegant, serene, and daggers to his soul.
Before he could learn to smile, he found his old scowl. Without a word he covered the child's mouth and carried her back into the shadows. She scrambled at first, but when the singing became known she too seized with terror.
It came closer with each passing moment and the two cowered as still as they could.
O Ninthodel, my fairest blade
Remove the sin that stains your glade
Let goblins fear
To know you're near
Or cut their heads clean off, I cheer
O Ninthodel, your light is made
To wash away what evil laid
Ugly faces
Fell disgraces
Tis no great sin, to-end their races
Elves.
No man or dwarf could sound so fair, nor sting so vile to orcish ears.
"It would cure a goblin to hear such beauty. He might lay down upon his sword, so moved by true goodness that he'd become conscious of his sin of living," one said to the songster.
The child could not take it. Beauty? She had heard such a thing, and it did not sound like elven drivel. Their pompous arrogance had driven her mad, and so she broke free from Ukagg's grasp. Ukagg reached to retrieve her, but terror had kept him from leaving his place.
The girl had disappeared up and over, and mournfully Ukagg knew she was lost. It was the inevitable fate of their kind to be slain, but knowing did not save Ukagg from the weight in his heart.
"Shut up!" Olmog screamed.
She bore fanged teeth and took a wide stance.
"You're not pretty! You're not!" she continued.
The elves made motions to draw out their blades, but the fairest had waved them down, urging a delay. He was abhorred by her presence, of course, but his curiosity postponed his instinct to kill.
"You're the smallest orc I've seen in my many days. What is that strange club you carry?"
From the sound of his voice, he must have been the one singing.
Olmog shrunk back, her fear finally catching up to her. Slowly, she brought the crude lute over her chest.
"Not a club…" she muttered, then said her next words louder. "It's… It's something pretty…"
Ukagg's heart trembled.
The elf leaned in to inspect.
"An instrument? How foul. Do you-"
"-No," Olmog interrupted. "I can't, but master can. He can, and when he does, it's a million times more pretty than your ugly words."
The elf studied the girl for a long moment, then retorted her calmly. "Orcs so often call what is beautiful ugly. Evil cannot create it, so in jealousy it hates."
Olmog's discomfort grew. Her small body trembled with dread and rage.
"But I will not be so hasty as to call you a liar," the elf said. Then he turned his head to where Ukagg lay hidden.
"Come out now, master of this imp. Humble me with your beauty or be slain."
Seconds passed, and Ukagg shuffled himself forward. He was stiff and dripping with sweat. After some paces, he stood beside Olmog. Silence. Though his instrument was ready.
For whatever reason, he did not play.
The elf held his gaze, focused more on the instrument than the hideous creature that held it.
"No orcish hands could have crafted that. Whom did you murder to steal it from?"
"I've stolen nothing, murdered nobody. It belonged to the man who taught my hands, and now it belongs to me."
"I would believe it if I could hear it played."
Ukagg's face wrinkled in frown. The glow in his eyes was fierce and held its ground. When the old orc replied it was strong and clear.
"I could strike these strings day and night, and you would never hear them."
"And why should I not?"
"Because I do not make them sing for you…"
The elf looked away and sighed. His hand clasped the hilt of his blade and slowly he withdrew it. There was a boredom about him so common to elves, but mixed within was great disappointment.
"Alas, your mischief has failed to save you. I pity you orcs, as deeply as the Sundering Sea," the elf said.
"If only you could do more than pity."
There was nothing left to debate. The elf raised his blade as an executioner before the wretched condemned. It shone brilliantly, just as his song had described it to be. Ukagg did not dare look upon it. Resigned to his fate, he shut his eyes. Memories of the songs he yearned to hear again filled his final thoughts.
Then for a moment, they became real.
Not from his hands, but from those of that child, plucked from the strings of that ruin she held, that crude lute he'd made with the shreds of his heart.
In a flash his eyes opened. Before him and the elf stood that little orc girl. In that moment in time in that old orc's eyes, she was more than a beast, but a blessing from something greater. The world around her seemed white in his mind. The elves were faint, clutching pain in their ears.
Each pluck that reverberated was a jolt to his joy, and he learned at last to smile. Warmth was in the air, and it no longer felt heavy to breathe. The trees were marvelous to see, and the sun was a thing to welcome. It had been so long that he had forgotten why he yearned for it. Now all was clear again to him. That lute was more than mercy, it was freedom from darkness utterly.
A song played for Ukagg's ears.
But a shadow was cast from the light Olmog made. A long reaching arm and its hateful blade. It was a sword that carried with it righteous fury. A strike to smite the prayers of those who dared to pray. Ukagg's serenity was broken. It was not his life that the elven blade sought. Rather, it was determined to erase that beautiful thing called Olmog.
Ukagg could not allow that child to be lost.
She had become the world to him. His master's dying wish was now standing before him in the form of that forsaken child. She was the gift he swore to share, now manifested to save them from darkness and the scorn of light.
The blade pierced the flesh on his back. It penetrated deep into his body, but he did not loosen his grip over the girl. He would die as her shield.
And so, Ukagg did just that. His last fading breaths left his mouth, and he tumbled over on his side. Olmog was speechless, as were the elves. The mountain of tears he never saw continued to drown the child's cheeks. The beauty he found was found within him alone, and the girl would never know his pride or his peace.
Each stroke she plucked was agony to her ears. Olmog knew what beauty sounded like, and she wept that she could not make it. Now her master was dead, and his beauty would never be heard again. The pain in her heart was like a hand around her throat, constricting her breath between whimpers and weeps.
In that little girl's mind it was clear who to blame. An ugly little fool named Olmog. If she had been better, practiced harder, then perhaps the elf would have known a taste of his blessing and spared their lives.
Instead, her playing had doomed them to despair. It was so poor, so utterly awful, that the elves writhed in agony to hear it. They cursed her, calling her worse than a Nazgul shriek.
Olmog collapsed in her suffering, plucking each note and knew it was wrong.
"I'm sorry!" she wept, over and over again. Her words became mangled as her mind broke further.
It was unnoticed by her that the elves were stunned too. They all looked nervously at one another, unable to comprehend what they had witnessed. The girl was awful, yes, but to see an orc willingly die for another, then to see one mourn for the other, it was unthinkable. In all their many years, never once did such an image occur in their minds.
For the very first time his unwavering blade hesitated to take a goblin's life. A great change had happened, even if it were so small. The sword shook in his hand and then he lowered it down. To smite that child in her grief seemed irredeemably immoral.
Without a word, the elves abandoned the tragedy. They awkwardly shuffled around the mourning little girl and did their best to forget the whole ordeal.
Olmog would bury her master in the best grave she could dig. She placed the crude wooden lute in his arms and begged him for forgiveness. The dirt covered him, and for the first time she held that ebony masterwork in her undeserving hands.
With the plectrum she played, each stroke shedding a tear in her eyes. The girl had held a small hope that she might hear his songs if she played what he'd held. Now that hope had vanished. It sounded no different to her than on the one he'd crafted.
Pluck.
Yet she never stopped playing.
Pluck.
The lute became a voice to shed her grief. Day after day. Night after night Year after year.
Pluck.
Olmog plucked those strings, endlessly searching for the singing she yearned for them to make.
Pluck.
Pluck.
Pluck.
Pluck.
Plucked high atop the tower of Orthanc.
What all of Isengard gathered to wait.
Pluck-Pluck-Pluck.
Ten-thousand eyes looked on to stare.
A small orc woman returned their glare.
The sides of her hair were twin snakes in the air, and a beautiful robe she adorned with a flair.
Pluck-Pluck–Pluck-Pluck-Pluck
She dreamt to replay her master's song.
All her notes she wept were wrong.
But the many souls who heard those strings, heard nothing but the warmth they sang.
Pluck. Pluck. Pluck. Pluck.
I play to you my every pain.
I hope that you forgive my stain.
Pluck-Pluck. Pluck-Pluck. Pluck-Pluck-Pluck.
The beauty I once knew and loved.
Fades from earth like clouds above.
Pluck-Pluck-Pluck. Pluck. Pluck.
The sun now shines, withstand the light.
And win this dark and perilous fight.
Pluck.
Should you fail, don't weep your ail.
I placed your heart within my tale.
Pluck.
Pray.
Pluck.
Pray for blessings the world won't give.
And I'll bestow our will to live.
Pluck.
For you know now what good things always knew.
A song that has been sung for you.
The dream had not vanished. The gift had not died. The song of the Uruk-hai was played, and so on their knees each of them prayed.
If the world would not bless them, then a blessing she would make.
Pluck.
Pluck.
Pluck.
Pluck.