[Thenamir]

Orc Patrol

Not long after dawn Thenamir and company were up again and on the march, warily skirting the foothills below their camp, nearly opposite of the way Guthrin had left.

Before they'd left, Thenamir had had a look at the orc corpses they'd passed on their way in. The cold had slowed their decay, and to the untrained eye, the slaughter looked as if it could have taken place in the last hour or two. The signs pointed to a small party, perhaps just a patrol, which had erupted into an argument.

There was an insignia and crest of sorts in the appearance of a white hand on their light armor. Thenamir stripped one of the corpses of its armor, thinking it might be a useful disguise at some point, and then burned the remains of the rest.

Now some hours after dawn, Thenamir called for a halt and a bite near one of the many streams which flowed down from the mountains. Dwarin unhitched Mim and led him to the waters, while Ulfine and the rest drank deeply of the stream and refilled their water-skins. It was then that Thenamir caught his first sight of the tip of Orthanc tower, some miles off, a blackened dart aimed at the sun. He shivered, but not becuase of the cold.

It was then that he heard the distant noise, the rhyhmic clank of pieces of badly-forged metal striking each other in a march-tempo. And getting louder.

[ December 11, 2002: Message edited by: Thenamir ]