[Child of the 7th Age]

Even before the first light streaked across the morning sky, the Orc guards were on their feet shouting at the hobbits to rise. Azra awoke with an aching head. Surely, it could not be day already. But the sliver of the moon and golden stars were already gone from the sky. She closed her eyes and wanted to pretend that there were no more Orcs and no more endless tracks through mountains and pine forests. She felt cold and sick and, even more, she felt hungry.

Azra remained with her eyes closed on the ground for an instant too long, wishing that she could fall back into her dreams. A long arm came over to paw her neck and shoulder. A clawlike hand seized upon her arm like iron. Nails bit into her skin and left a rakish impression scratched across her skin.
Reluctatly, but with great speed, she bounded off the ground.

More than once, Azra had thought to try and run away to escape. For she was small and agile, and might possibly have succeeded in eluding her Orc guards. There were many of them, but, to Azra's eyes, they were slow of body and mind. And yet she did not leave the group. Durshnakh's threat to kill off the children had been no idle thing. She knew he spoke the truth. Azra might find her own way out into the woods, but how could she live with herself knowing that an infant or young hobbit would lay dead because of her actions? For, stupid though they might be, the Orcs had already been careful to count off the number in each family group to make sure none was missing.

For the first time in her life, Azra was faced with the situation that any mistake she made, any headstrong desire to run off or begin some madcap adventure, could have real and negative consequences for her friends. And she had to admit, she was beginning to think of some of these hobbits as her friends.

Ever since she had heard of the death of Piosenniel, Nitir had held herself apart from the group, even from her friend Azra. And the young hobbit did not understasnd this. She understood tears and remembering and even periods of silence, but this long coldness by Nitir did not seem right. Azra sensed that something was very wrong, but she did not know what it was. If you had questioned her, Azra would not have had the words to explain her feelings or suspicions, but instinctively she knew that Azra was grieving not just for Piosenniel but for something or someone else as well.

Since Nitir had withdrawn so completely, Azra had turned to her other companions to try and make friends. This morning, she sat on the ground with Zira, sharing the last meager crumbs of bread that the family had brought from Gondolin. Many of the other hobbit families were in the same sitution, with their food almost gone.

Orc guards went through the group and distributed strips of some ill-looking bread and a chunk of raw meat to every prisoner. Azra was afraid to eat the flesh, not knowing what creature it might belong to, but she greedily tore into the bread. Last night, she had found a number of berries along the trail, and showed them to Raza to make sure they were alright to eat. The two had shared them with Abar, and ended their feast with a draught of water from the mysterious tarn. Azra would like to have gone back to that water, but the Orcs were again kicking them to their feet to plunge onward across the moors.

Azra dropped temporarily to the very rear of the column. There were only two guards behind her, and these were quarrelling loudly with each other. Azra undid the scarf which Daisy had embroidered for her on the Lonely Star, and tied it tightly onto one of the bushes that stood right next to the trail, as close to the lake as she could manage.

This day and the next continued on like the earlier one. The hardships were those of hunger and hurting and extreme frustration, but, unlike that first night, the prisoners did not seem to fear immediate death. Yet, that last afternoon on the trail, something happened which changed Azra's mind and made her realize that there was no safety anywhere.

A young man had been discovered hiding a dagger deep within the recesses of his garments. One of the Orc guards dragged him forward along with the others in his family. Then they seized the youngest from his kin, a child of no more than three years, and grabbed him by the neck. The Orc guard cried out, "This, this, is what you rats will get when you defy our orders." With a motion easy and practiced and without hesitation of any kind, the Orc ran the child through with a sword. The young hobbit mother dropped down upon the ground, cradling the body. She tried to hold the little one in her arms and carry along his lifeless form, but the Orcs ripped the bundle from her hands and kicked it over the edge of the path.

The next time they stopped for a rest, Zira told Azra to take the little Abar far off the trail and quickly remove the dagger from under his clothes and drop it into some hidden place. She did this, and then returned the little boy to his mother. And, although Azra did not know it, there were other families who did the same with the weapons they had managed to hide.

That last day, the group trudged on hour after hour, stopping once or twice to eat the moldy bread. The Orcs forced them to go forward even more swiftly than before, until even the strongest among them began to weaken from the pace. Finally, long after darkness had settled on the trail, the group arrived at another set of ruins, these much larger and more spread out than the ones before. Marks of an old fire were evident on the broken frames of the buildings. Even the pine forests must have burned down near here for the trees were younger and thinner than those they had seen earlier along the way.

The Orcs relayed the command to halt. Then Durshnakh grunted out his orders. "Welcome to your new home, halfling rats. Sleep now for tomorrow you have the honor of hard labor for the master of this realm, the Lord of the Dark and King of the World."

That night all the hobbits, even Maura and Nitir, fell asleep quickly, their bodies too tired and hurting to stay awake for even a little longer. Only the mother of the child who had been killed that day sat up with her husband at her side, bitterly weeping over the doom of her son.

[ August 14, 2002: Message edited by: Child of the 7th Age ]