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‘Retreat! Retreat!’ Grimm heard Búbkûr’s cry from atop the hill. ‘Smart ‘un, that,’ he snorted at his brother. Broga was leaning on Grimm’s arm with his right hand as they picked their way down the rocky track on the northern side of Weathertop. His left eye had stopped bleeding. Grimm had yanked the arrow from it. No use being careful he’d said, the eye’s gone. Despite the pain, Broga was already thinking how much more gruesome, that is Troll-handsome, he was going to be now. Should they ever manage to find any females of their own persuasion, he was sure now to be on par with his brother.
As if reading his thoughts, Grimm pinched the half-blind Troll hard on the arm. ‘Pay attention with what sight you got, brother. Fall off the hill now and you’ll not live to go dancing in the Shaws again.’
‘Underestimated the little worms, we did,’ Grimm went on, helping Broga across a particularly slippery, pebbly place. ‘That Orc chief has a lot of little grunts under him,’ returned Broga. ‘Why didn’t he just send all of us in to crush them? That’s what I want to know.’
The two Trolls picked up there speed once down on level ground, heading toward where the Orc encampment lay. ‘Don’t know why he didn’t,’ puffed Grimm as they thumped along. ‘But I know what I’d do now.’
‘What’s that?’ asked Broga, slowing the pace. The jarring of their quick steps was beginning to make his eye throb all the more.
‘We got to cut them off from getting back to the man town. Too easy for them to get plenty of angry farmers and the like to come after us. We got easy pickin’ around here. We don’t want ‘em knowing who’s doing it.’ Grimm scratched his chest as he thought this out. Nodding vigorously as his thoughts took shape. ‘So what should we do, you ask,’ he went on in a satisfied way. Broga looked at him with his one good eye and opened his mouth to remind his brother that, no, he hadn’t actually asked. Grimm, however, ignored his brother’s protests and went on. ‘You know,’ he said, giving a ghastly grin. ‘We got cousins back east. In the Shaws. Let’s see if old Chiefy’ll want to herd them that way. We can torture ‘em as we go. N’ stomp ‘em good once we had our fun.’
A wicked light shone in Broga’s lone eye. ‘I want to stick one of them Elf’s arrows in his own eye,’ he rasped out. ‘See how he likes it. Nasty Elf!’
‘Well, then, let’s go tell His Orc-high'n'mightyness what we’re thinking. We’ll need to get back soon and cut them off from heading back to the town. Part of us can do that, the rest can force ‘em to the Shaws.’
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