The Great Quest

Meanwhile, as the night reached its peak, the broodlord and his men were making camp. The broodlord said, while the rest sank down upon the ground, "Tommorrow, we shall reach the city again. Let uss be ready to meet up with our," and a laugh, "alliess..."

The others quickly picked up his meaning, and in moments, they broodlord resembled a merchant, and his men scarred and hardened bodyguards. The broodlord laughed, softly, an eery and primal sound, as they prepared for the little rest they would need until the next day.

Arnon's mouth thinned. "Who's the one asking questions?" he asked coldly as he raised an eyebrow. "Now I would like to know why your people are pursued by those creatures, why they wanted to stop the orc talking, and who all of you are, and who you serve. These . . . these . . ."

"Nrakes."

"These Nrakes and those creatures that attacked you at the riverbank are all unfamiliar to us. Have you awakened some ancient evil from the past, or is it the Dark Lord of Mordor's rising power that we have put ourselves at odds with?"

*Would Harnauro know they are called Nrakes? He might, if, say, Ayna or somewhere had told him, but I wasn't sure.*

Harnauro gave a dark laugh. "I would like to know why these creatures are after me, too. But they haven't been exactly forthcoming. Both these beasts, and the warriors we fought earlier, have been plaguing us. They seem to be working together, but as to their goal, I don't have a clue. I first ran into one of them which had tried to take one I was guarding, the girl, there." He points towards Ayna, who was standing in the doorway, looking into the room with worry, and is taken aback as he points her out.

"As to what they want, as I said, I don't know. Ask the ranger, he might know." He turns to stride past Arnon, as though exhausted by his words, and doesn't spare another glance for any of those in the room.

*I don't know if he would have known, now that I think about it. I didn't know if he knew, and I didn't feel like going over all ten of the pages we've filled up. Perhaps Mal could have figured it out and told him. Plus he's got good hearing, if it is anything like a wolf's normally is, and he might have heard the conversations between the broodlord and his Nrake.*

Arnon snorted softly at Harnauro's last sentence, and after a brief glance at Ayna, followed him out. But that was as far as their paths continued together, as Harnauro entered another of the rooms, and Arnon went a different way. He walked quickly down the stairs and left the cavern, walking out into the night air, across the stone plateau, not appearing to notice the biting cold of the wind.

He soon entered a side cavern, his eyes rapidly adjusting to the greater degree of darkness.

He quickly passed a couple guards as he entered the cave inhabited by the imprisoned Nrake.

Their eyes locked and Arnon calmly drew a cloth from a pouch at his side. Shoving it into the Nrake's mouth, he instantly after dug in.

Stepping back, he wiped the bloody dagger on the damp cloth, looking down at his victim.

"Get rid of the body," he said calmly to the guards. Then he sighed. "I suppose the orc will have to be left alive for a little while longer. Until the weakhu'ne are through with him. When they leave, if they don't take the orc with them, dispose of it as well."

Harnauro stalked through the corridors of the cliffside, searching for where the Nrak had come in. He did not like how easily it had found them, and he still knew little more than before they had captured it.

And the name it had spoken, Vardor... it lingered on the edge of his mind, reaching back into memories long undisturbed... Harnauro ruminated on it, in the back of his mind, as he tracked the Nrake's pathway into the cliff dwellings.

*By the way, did Vardor have any relationship with Sauron? It could make a difference in how well Harnauro knows him.*

*Perhaps only the vaguest of connections. Vardor was working almost entirely by himself, and although on occasion he might have seen Sauron, as they were both serving Morgoth, they never were very connected.*

The scent and trail led down to the entrance of the cave, and there was lost amid all the other scents from all the other people who had passed through that area just a few hours before. Almost impossible to pick out, and absolutely impossible to follow.

Harnauro's wolf vision cut through the darkness almost as easily as Agravigan's could have, and it was because of this that he saw two of the cliff dwellers dragging a limp body out of a dark cave a hundred or so yards away.

As he got closer, the scent returned again. A Nrake.

Harnauro's bow was in his hands in an instant, an arrow nocked on the string. He moved quickly up to the guards, and they started at seeing his dark form loom up out of the shadows.

"Who are you?" one barked, putting a length of cold steel between them as he moved his sword.

"What are you doing with the prisoner?" Harnauro responded, ignoring the question.

"It is none of your affair," the man responded.

He made a strangling noise as Harnauro moved with impossible speed past the sword blade, seized the him by the neck and snapped the sword to the side with the other hand. The guard was good, though, and it took a great deal of effort to hold him down. His companion looked uncertain, but after a moment he drew his sword, too. That wasn't good. Harnauro wanted answers, not dead bodies.

"I'm making it my affair."

"The prisoner has been executed by our commander, Arnon," the man gasped, both hands fastened around Harnauro's wrist. "We were just disposing of this creature's body."

Arnon. Harnauro had disliked that man from the start. He tossed the guard down, who gasped for air can rubbed his throat as Harnauro turned and strode quickly from the cave, searching for Arnon, or for any of his companions, to warn them treachery might be at work.

Arnon fastened a stronger cloak, one that would keep out the wind, around his throat as he walked to the cave entrance. He looked out briefly in both directions before slipping silently out into the night.

But he was not the only one out that night, as became obvious to him when the wolfman appeared out of the darkness, directly in front of them.

"Are you nocturnal by habit, or simply my shadow?" Arnon asked, apparently not at all disturbed at Harnauro's sudden appearance.

Harnauro ignored Arnon's question, instead matching him with one of his own. "Why is the captive beast dead?" he uttered, in a low growl, placing his hands across his chest and staring starkly at Arnon.

"I executed it," Arnon answered simply. "I have every right to make such a decision. You couldn't get anything more out of it, I couldn't, and the enemy would be sending more creatures to silence it before long, which means more of the people of this village will likely die. You are all being targeted, for an unknown reason, and we thought that here would be a safe haven for you. It appears that it isn't any safer here than it was out in the wilderness, and here whatever threatens you also endangers the lives of all the people here. I am responsible for those lives, and if the death of one useless enemy captive will help to lessen that danger, than I would gladly do it. Any day."

He fingered his sword hilt with one hand as he spoke. "And if you have gotten all you can from that orc, I think its death would also be helpful in avoiding more bloodshed. Who knows, if it is slain and you still know few of these enemy's secrets, perhaps your lives will also be made a degree safer. And you would be less important of targets, if you are even targets at all after that. Then it would be your decision whether you become thorns in his side that need rooting out, or unimportant people who can merely slip into the background."

"For one responsible for so many lives, you seem quite eager to ignore any dangers to them," responds Harnauro. "Of course, you also speak as though you know quite a bit about whoever plagues us - maybe that's why you ignore the threat to your people, eh?"

Arnon's eyes widen in anger, but Harnauro brushes past him, heading back towards the dwellings.

*I'm not sure that Harnauro understood what Arnon just said, because his response doesn't make all that much sense to me. Everything Arnon was saying was confirming that he knew his responsibilities and was going to keep his people safe, even if it meant sacrificing valuable prisoners.*

The black night sky was beginning to show streaks of light across it, a pale golden glow showing that dawn was coming fast upon the inhabitants of the cliff dwellings, as they struggled to pull apart the mystery that surrounded them and save their own lives as well.

Slythre looked out towards the faint light in the horizon, her face deceptively calm, showing nothing of the turmoil that filled the brain behind it. Unanswered questions filled the corners of her mind; it seemed that the few answers they had only led to more questions. They were being targeted, hunted and forced to flee along a narrow precipice, and to fall meant death.

She turned away from the faint lightening of the sky in the distance and turned back to the still dark caves where the rest of the cliff dwellers slept, unaware of the happenings of the night, the fighting and questionings that had filled the few cliff dwellers that did know with awe and fear.

Harnauro was just leaving the caves, his face also a mask over his own feelings. He had apparently just abandoned his long night's hunt for clues.

"I believe we've only got one lead left," she said as soon as he came close enough to hear. "We must question the orc."

Ulrog yawned and tried to find a corner with as little sunlight as possible. He was tired after his struggle with the Nrake, and hadn't slept during the night for fear of more of the things coming to kill him. He had a feeling he was safer during the day. Wolf-man and his friends would keep their prisoner safe. Just as Ulrog started to get comfortable two long shaodows fell accorss him. Looking up he saw Wolf-man, and the woman who had stabbed him all those nights ago.

"What do you know of these enemy's activities?" Slythre asked as she squatted down beside the orc.

Ulrog sighed, and cursed inside. He'd known this would have to happen sooner or later.

"Speak up. I'm afraid we couldn't quite catch that." Slythre pulled her dagger casually from its sheath and played with it in her fingers. "What do you know of these enemy's activities," she said again, prodding its chin with the knife point.

He was already on their hit list. Telling them now would simply avoid death and torture now, which he surely would recieve anyway at his master's hands. "He keeps his information very secret," he said in a sly voice. "But I do know perhaps more than the average person under his command. It'll be worth your while to keep me alive."

"I'm very glad to here that," Slythre said with a frosty smile. "And now is your big chance to prove it."

Ulrog looked nervously at the dagger and at the tall imposing figure of Wolf-man.
"I don't know what my master wants to do in the end. None of us do. Us orcs always thought he wanted to be master of everyone, but I'm not so sure. He'd always send me out spying, like I was on you, but why, I never knew. Those lizards were definetly from him, even though I've never seen them before. Wherever you are, you aren't safe. Here is not safe. I promise you that. Do you think those things just got in, past all the guards? I doubt that!"

Slythre frowned. "You're suggesting that the Nrakes were allowed into the cliff dwellings? By Arnon or some other commander?"

Ulrog sighed. He was really in for it now.
"Yes. Once I was reporting to one of my masters men. He seemed quite important. He didn't dismiss me when the master contacted him, and I caught the beginnings of a conversation. A planned alliance with the eagles",Ulrog almost spat the word out, "was mentioned but then the master saw I was still in the room, and he punished us both. It wouldn't suprise me if my master has recruited some of the men here. He has done such things before."

"Seems strange he didn't kill you both instead," Slythre said dryly. "Harnauro, perhaps you would like to proceed from here?"

She stepped back, sheathed her knife and crossed her arms. Harnauro stepped forward, and Ulrog cringed.

"You say," Harnauro's voice seemed to boom around the goblin, "That your master planned an alliance with the eagles, and has done such things before. What can you tell us of these other allies your master has?"

*Roland, your turn. Slythre isn't quite as good at this sort of thing as Harnauro, so I'll watch until either it ends or I decide to have a character interject.*