View Single Post
Old 07-05-2006, 03:49 AM   #28
Undómë
Shade of Carn Dûm
 
Undómë's Avatar
 
Join Date: Mar 2005
Posts: 400
Undómë has just left Hobbiton.
Zagra and Mazhg


Zagra loped along easily, her small form like a shadow to her sister’s. Mazhg, for her part, had run fast just ahead of her twin, her quick stride eating up the dark distances. She hardly wavered from the course she had set in her mind, though she had only heard of where the meeting place was to be and of a few of the general landmarks along the way. She had that feral sort of sense which guided her steps; that untamed, innate reckoning by which beasts, or those who live close to the land, know where they are bound.

There had been the scent of the lifeless sea, of course, to one side, and the sweeter scent of what small pools of water might lay along the way. In the distance was the rushing scent of some river as it wound its way to the sea. And the soil itself smelled different as the elevations changed, the water grew more scarce; or if it lay fallow or untouched, or had been cultivated.

It was the dark night sky with its white-faced moon and its pinpricks of stars, though, that was Mazhg’s surest guide. The bright orbs glittered in the dark pools of her eyes as she swung her head from side to side to check directions.

‘We almost there?’ Zagra spoke softly, increasing her pace so that she drew up alongside her sister. ‘Zagra hungry.’

‘Chew on this as we run,’ Mazhg had whispered, dipping her hand deep into her breeches pocket. A ragged piece of dried meat, unrecognizable as to its original source, was soon offered to Zagra who took it eagerly.

The miles had sped by in silence between the two, broken only by the soft slap-slap of their feet against the ground. Just over the final rise, they stopped, looking down at the group gathered there. Three-hands’-fingers’ worth, Mazhg puzzled out, counting the heads in the dark distance.

With a sudden start, the Orc group moved off at a run.

‘Come, sister!’ Mazhg hissed low, grabbing Zagra firmly by the hand. ‘The edge there, at the back, where the line is ragged. That’s where we’ll slip in.’

The two small, boyish looking figures quickened their pace until they inched in among the other runners. They kept their heads low, avoiding the flying elbows of their new companions and squeezed into a small opening further inside the fast moving group.
Undómë is offline