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Angóre moved slowly along the western troupe's trail. This splitting of the Orcish strength worried him. When they had first come to the place where the party had split it had made him glad: the obvious explanation was that the foul folk had quarreled, whether over the captives or the direction was, of course, unknown. But Orcish quarrels tended to leave corpses in their wake, and no sign of conflict could be seen. Already Angóre was starting to have a healthy respect for the unknown captain of these Orcs, and this further solidified his feeling. It was a rare captain who could split his troop, sending some off in a clearly diversionary tactic. Especially when prisoners and spoil lay with one group.
He had been working his way along for perhaps a quarter of an hour when he came to a small stream. He frowned. This did not look good. The Orcs had entered the stream and moved along it, in which direction Angóre could not tell from where he stood. The little stream had started to freeze in the chill of the night before, and for a moment Angóre hoped he might be able to tell their direction from the broken ice reaching out from both banks, but the Orcs had stuck to the center of the stream and if they had broken off ice, Angóre couldn't tell the difference.
Gaeredhel had only just finished giving his report when the trio heard the slow clop of Angóre's horse. They looked up at him expectantly as he entered the clearing, but he shook his head in negation. "I cannot tell," he said simply. "Any luck from you?"
Gaeredhel shook his head as well. Angóre sighed. "There is a frozen stream not far from here. The Orcs I was following entered it, in which direction I cannot say. But they cannot have stayed in the water for long; the cold would sap the strength from their legs. But it is worrying nonetheless; it is the first thought they have taken to throwing off pursuit. I fear it will only become more difficult to track them from here on."
Faerim spoke slowly. "If one of the troops is taking care to conceal themselves, and the other isn't, I'd guess that the first troop is the important one and the second is the decoy." He looked up at Angóre, who nodded in agreement. "That would also be my guess. But the orcish captain has proved so cunning thus far I would not put it past him to take advantage of this. I do not know if we can afford to leave one column alone entirely."
"How far ahead would you say they are?" Rôsgollo asked. "Not far," Gaeredhel spoke up, "I would say not more than a few hours." Angóre nodded in agreement with Gaeredhel's assessment. "Then," Rôsgollo continued, "we might follow both trains and when we've found which contains Lord Ereglin, send word to the others."
"I'm not sure I like that idea," Faerim said. "It'd be at least another whole day while the other two caught up, even if we could get a message to them immediately. Throw in the Orcs' movements and we could be separated by half of Arnor right when we need to act."
Angóre nodded again. "I agree with the boy. We must choose one, and pray that it is the right one. I would choose the westward trail, but it is a baseless guess and I do not lead this company. What do you think?"
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