Lyrd of the Ryngs - Return of Good Architecture

[Lady Marion Magdalena]

Hardly twenty paces from where the hobbits lurked the small orc stopped. "Nar!" it snarled. "I'm going home." It pointed across the valley to the ORCer-Offices. "No good wearing the tracking device out on stones any more. There's not a trace left, I say. I've lost the signal through giving way to you. It went up into the hills, not along the valley, I tell you."

"Not much use are you, you little techies?" said the big orc. "I reckon eyes are better than your contraptions."

"Then what have you seen with them?" snarled the other. "Garn! You don't even know what you're looking for."

"Whose blame's that?" said the soldier. "Not mine. That comes from Higher Up. First they say it's a great Elf in bullet-proof armor, then it's a sort of small dwarf-man, then it must be a pack of rebels; or maybe it's all the lot together."

"Ar!" said the tracker. "They've lost their heads, that's what it is. If that's the way you ORCers go on, small wonder there's bad news from the battles."

"That's cursed rebel-talk, you don’t shut your mouth, I’ll shoot your jaw off, see?"

"All right, all right!" said the tracker. "I'll say no more and go on thinking. But what's the black sneak got to do with it all? That gobbler with the flapping hands?"

"I don't know. Nothing, maybe. But he's up to no good, nosing around, I'll wager. Curse him! No sooner had he slipped us and run off than word came he's wanted alive, wanted quick."

"Well, I hope they get him and put him through it," growled the tracker. "He messed up the signal back there, pinching that cast-off sweatsuit jacket that he found, and paddling all round the place before I could get there."

"It saved his life anyhow," said the official. "Why, before I knew he was wanted I shot him, as neat as neat, at fifty paces right in the back; but he ran on."

"Garn! You missed him," said the tracker. "First you shoot wild, then you run too slow, and then you send for the poor trackers. I've had enough of you." He loped off.

"You come back," shouted the official, "or I'll report you!"

"Who to? Not to your precious Shagrat. He won't be captain any more."

"I'll give your name and number to the Nazgûl," said the official lowering his voice to a hiss. "One of them's in charge at the Tower now."
The other halted, and his voice was full of fear and rage. "You cursed peaching sneakthief!" he yelled. "You can't do your job, and you can't even stick by your own folk. Go to your filthy Shrieking lawyers, and may they freeze the flesh off you! If the enemy doesn't get them first. They've done in Number One, I've heard, and I hope it's true!"

The ORCer, shotgun in hand, leapt after him. But the tracker, springing behind a stone, jabbed the antenna of the sensing device in his eye as he ran up, and he fell with a crash. The other ran off across the valley and disappeared.

For a while the hobbits sat in silence. At length Sam stirred. "Well I call that neat as neat," he said. "If this nice friendliness would spread about in Mordor, half our trouble would be over."

"Quietly, Sam," Frodo whispered. "There may be others about. We have evidently had a very narrow escape, and the hunt was hotter on our tracks than we guessed. But that is the spirit of Mordor, Sam; and it has spread to every corner of it. Orcs have always behaved like that, or so all tales say, when they are on their own. But you can't get much hope out of it. They hate us far more, altogether and all the time. If those two had seen us, they would have dropped all their quarrel until we were dead."

[Grey_Wolf]

............

[Grey_Wolf]

There was another long silence. Sam broke it again, but with a whisper this time. "Did you hear what they said about that gobbler, Mr. Frodo? I told you Gollum wasn't dead yet, didn't I?"

"Yes, I remember. And I wondered how you knew," said Frodo. "Well come now! I think we had better not move out from here again, until it has gone quite dark. So you shall tell me how you know, and all about what happened. If you can do it quietly."

"I'll try," said Sam, "but when I think of that Stinker I get so hot I could shout."

Then while they sat quietly waiting for darkness to fall Sam told Frodo of all that had happened.

When he had finished, Frodo said nothing but took Sam's hand and pressed it. At length he stirred.

"Well, I suppose we must be going on again," he said. "I wonder how long it will be before we really are caught and all the toiling and the slinking will be over, and in vain." He stood up.

[Grey_Wolf]

"It's dark, and we cannot use the Lady's Halogene Lamp. Keep it safe for me, Sam. I have nowhere to keep it now, except in my hand, and I shall need both hands in the blind night. But Sting I give to you. I have got an ORCer Utility Knife, but I do not think it will be my part to strike any blow again."

[Grey_Wolf]

It was difficult and dangerous moving in the night in pathless land; but slowly and with much stumbling the two hobbits toiled on hour by hour northward along the eastern edge of the stony valley.

When a grey ligth crept bac over the western heights, long after day had opened in the lands beyond, they went inot hiding again and slep a little, turn by turn.

In his times of waking Sam was busily thinking about provisions. At last when Frodo woke up and spoke of food and making ready for yet another effort, he asked the question that was troubling him most.

"Mr Frodo, have any idea how far there is still to go?"

[Grey_Wolf]

"No, not any clear notion, Sam," Frodo answered. "In Rivendell before I set out I was shown a map of Mordor that was made before the Enemy came back here; but I only remember it vaguely. I remember clearest that there was a place in the north where the western range and the northern range send out spurs that nearly meet. That must be twenty leagues at least from the bridge back by the Tower. It might be a good point at which to cross. But of course, if we get there, we shall be further than we were from the Mountain, sixty miles from it, I should think. I guess that we have gone about twelve leagues north from the bridge now. Even if all goes well, I could hardly reach the Mountain in a week. I am afraid, Sam, that the burden will get very heavy, and I shall go still slower as we get nearer."

Sam sighed. "That's just as I feared," he said. "Well, to say nothing of water, we've got to eat less, Mr. Frodo, or else move a bit quicker, at any rate while we're still in this valley. One more bite and all the food's ended, save the Elves' waybread."
"I'll try and be a bit quicker, Sam," said Frodo, drawing a deep breath. "Come on then! Let's start another march!"

It was not yet quite dark again. They plodded along, on into the night. The hours passed in a weary stumbling trudge with a few brief halts. At the first hint of grey light under the skirts of the canopy of shadow they hid themselves again in a dark hollow under an overhanging stone.

Slowly the light grew, until it was clearer than it yet had been. A strong wind from the West was now driving the fumes of Mordor from the upper airs. Before long the hobbits could make out the shape of the land for some miles about them. The trough between the mountains and the Morgai had steadily dwindled as it climbed upwards, and the inner ridge was now no more than a shelf in the steep faces of the Ephel Dúath; but to the east it fell as sheerly as ever down into Gorgoroth.

Ahead the water-course came to an end in broken steps of rock; for out from the main range there sprang a high barren spur, thrusting eastward like a wall. To meet it there stretched out from the grey and misty northern range of Ered Lithui a long jutting arm; and between the ends there was a narrow gap: Carach Angren, the Isenmouthe, beyond which lay the deep dale of Udûn.

In that dale behind the Morannon were the tunnels and office blocks where the servants conducted the minor tasks of the Black Land.

And there now their Lord was gathering in haste great forces to meet the onslaught of the Captains of the West.

Upon the out-thrust spurs plexiglas panorama windowed hubs and towers were built, and floodlights were now lit; and all across the gap an earth-wall had been raised, and a deep trench delved that could be crossed only by a single suspensionbridge.

[Grey_Wolf]

A few miles north, high up in the angle where the western spur branched away from the main range, stood the old Factory of Durthang, now one of the many ORCer functionary buildings that clustered about the dale of Udûn.

A road, already visible in the growing light, came winding down from it, until only a mile or two from where the hobbits lay it turned east and ran along a shelf cut in the side of the spur, and so went down into the plain, and on to the Isenmouthe.

To the hobbits as they looked out it seemed that all their journey north had been useless. The plain to their right was dim and smoky, and they could see there neither camps nor troops moving; but all that region was under the vigilance of the security forces of Carach Angren.

"We have come to a dead end, Sam," said Frodo. "If we go on, we shall only come up to that ORCer-building, but the only road to take is that road that comes down from it - unless we go back. We can't climb up westward, or climb down eastward."

"Then we must take the road, Mr. Frodo," said Sam. "We must take it and chance our luck, if there is any luck in Mordor. We might as well give ourselves up as wander about any more, or try to go back. Our food won't last. We've got to make a dash for it!"

"All right, Sam," said Frodo. "Lead me! As long as you've got any hope left. Mine is gone. But I can't dash, Sam. I'll just plod along after you."
"Before you start any more plodding, you need sleep and food, Mr. Frodo. Come and take what you can get of them!"

[Grey_Wolf]

He gave Frodo water and an additional package of MRE's, and he made a pillow of his windbreaker for his master's head. Frodo was too weary to debate the matter, and Sam did not tell him that he had drunk the last drop of their water, and eaten Sam's share of the food as well as his own.

When Frodo was asleep Sam bent over him and listened to his breathing and scanned his face. It was lined and thin, and yet in sleep it looked content and unafraid.

"Well, here goes, Master!" Sam muttered to himself. "I'll have to leave you for a bit and trust to luck. Water we must have, or we'll get no further."

[Grey_Wolf]

Sam crept out, and flitting from stone to stone with more than hobbit-care, he went down to the water-course, and then followed it for some way as it climbed north, until he came to the rock-steps where long ago, no doubt, its spring had come gushing down in a little waterfall.

All now seemed dry and silent; but refusing to despair Sam stooped and listened, and to his delight he caught the sound of trickling. Clambering a few steps up he found a tiny stream of dark water that came out from the hill-side and filled a little bare pool, from which again it spilled, and vanished then under the barren stones.

Sam tasted the water, and it seemed good enough. Then he drank deeply, refilled the bottle, and turned to go back. At that moment he caught a glimpse of a black form or shadow flitting among the rocks away near Frodo's hiding-place. Biting back a cry, he leapt down from the spring and ran, jumping from stone to stone.

It was a wary creature, difficult to see, but Sam had little doubt about it: he longed to get his hands on its neck. But it heard him coming and slipped quickly away. Sam thought he saw a last fleeting glimpse of it, peering back over the edge of the eastward precipice, before it ducked and disappeared.

"Well, luck did not let me down," muttered Sam, "but that was a near thing! Isn't it enough to have ORCers by the thousand without that stinking villain coming nosing round? I wish he had been shot!" He sat down by Frodo and did not rouse him; but he did not dare to go to sleep himself.

At last when he felt his eyes closing and knew that his struggle to keep awake could not go on much longer, he wakened Frodo gently.

"That Gollum's about again, I'm afraid, Mr. Frodo," he said. "Leastways, if it wasn't him, then there's two of him. I went away to find some water and spied him nosing round just as I turned back. I reckon it isn't safe for us both to sleep together, and begging your pardon, but I can't hold up my lids much longer."

"Bless you, Sam!" said Frodo. "Lie down and take your proper turn! But I'd rather have Gollum than orcs. At any rate he won't give us away to them - not unless he's caught himself."

"But he might do a bit of robbery and murder on his own," growled Sam. "Keep your eyes open, Mr. Frodo! There's a bottle full of water. Drink up. We can fill it again when we go on." With that Sam plunged into sleep.

Light was fading when he woke. Frodo sat propped against the rock behind, but he had fallen asleep. The water-bottle was empty. There was no sign of Gollum.

[Grey_Wolf]

Mordor-dark had returned, and the search-ligths on the heights shone bright, when the hobbits set out again on the most dangerous stage of all their journey.

They went first to the little spring, and then climbing warily up they came to the road at the point where it swung east towards the Isenmouthe twenty miles away.

It was not a broad road, and it had no safety-fence along the edge and as it ran on the sheer drop from its brink became deeper and deeper.

The hobbits could hear no movements, and after listening for a while they set off eastward at a steady pace.

After doing some twelve miles, they halted. A short way back the road had bent a little northward and the stretch that they had passed over was now screened from sight. This proved disastrous.

They rested for some minutes and then went on; but they had not taken many steps when suddenly in the stillness of the night they heard the sound that all along they had secretly dreaded: the noise of marching feet.

It was still some way behind them, but looking back they could see the twinkle of flashlights coming round the bend less than a mile away, and they were moving fast: too fast for Frodo to escape by flight along the road ahead.

[Grey_Wolf]

"I feared it, Sam," said Frodo. "We've trusted to luck, and it has failed us. We're trapped." He looked wildly up at the frowning wall, where the road-builders of old had cut the rock sheer for many fathoms above their heads.

He ran to the other side and looked over the brink into a dark pit of gloom. "We're trapped at last!" he said He sank to the ground beneath the wall of rock and bowed his head.

"Seems so," said Sam. "Well, we can but wait and see." And with that he sat down beside Frodo under the shadow of the cliff.

They did not have to wait long. The ORCers were going at a great pace. Those in the foremost files bore flashlights.

On they came, shining faintly in the dark. Now Sam too bowed his head, hoping that it would hide his face when the flashlights reached them; and he set their shields before their knees to hide their feet.

"If only they are in a hurry and will let a couple of tired soldiers alone and pass on!" he thought.

[Grey_Wolf]

And so it seemed that they would. The leading ORCers came loping along, panting, holding their heads down.

They were a gang of the smaller breeds being driven unwilling to their Dark Lawyer's hostile take-over.

All they cared for was to get the march over and escape the whip.

Beside them, running up and down the line, went two of the large fierce Uruk Union Officials, cracking lashes and shouting.

File after file passed, and the tell-tale flashlight was already some way ahead. Sam held his breath.

Now more than half the line had gone by. Then suddenly one of the officials spied the two figures by the road-side.

[Grey_Wolf]

He flicked a whip at them and yelled: "Hi, you! Get up!" They did not answer, and with a shout he halted the whole company.

"Come on, you slugs!" he cried. "This is no time for slouching." He took a step towards them, and even in the gloom he recognized the devices on their shields.

"Deserting, eh?" he snarled. "Or thinking of it? All your folk should have been inside Udûn before yesterday evening. You know that. Up you get and fall in, or I'll have your membercards and report you."

They struggled to their feet, and keeping bent, limping like footsore soldiers, they shuffled back towards the rear of the line.

"No, not at the rear!" the official shouted. "Three files up. And stay there, or you'll know it, when I come down the line!" He sent his long whip-lash cracking over their heads; then with another crack and a yell he started the company off again at a brisk trot.

It was hard enough for poor Sam, tired as he was; but for Frodo it was a torment, and soon a nightmare. He set his teeth and tried to stop his mind from thinking, and he struggled on.

The stench of the sweating orcs about him was stifling, and he began to gasp with thirst. On, on they went, and he bent all his will to draw his breath and to make his legs keep going; and yet to what evil end he toiled and endured he did not dare to think. There was no hope of falling out unseen: Now and again the ORCer official fell back and jeered at them.

[Grey_Wolf]

"There now!" he laughed, flicking at their legs. "Where there's a whip there's a will, my slugs. Hold up! I'd give you a nice freshener now, only you'll get as much lash as your skins will carry when you come in late to your camp. Do you good. Don't you know we're at war?"

They had gone some miles, and the road was at last running down a long slope into the plain, when Frodo's strength began to give out and his will wavered.

He lurched and stumbled. Desperately Sam tried to help him and hold him up, though he felt that he could himself hardly stay the pace much longer.

At any moment now he knew that the end would come: his master would faint or fall, and all would be discovered, and their bitter efforts be in vain.

"I'll have that big slave-driving official mother anyway," he thought.

[Grey_Wolf]

Then just as he was putting his hand to the hilt of his sword, there came an unexpected relief.

They were out on the plain now and drawing near the entrance to Udûn.

Some way in front of it, before the chainlinked gate at the bridge-end, the road from the west converged with others coming from the south, and from Barad-dûr.

Along all the roads groups were moving; for the Captains of the West were advancing and the Dark Lord was speeding his forces north.

So it chanced that several groups came together at the road-meeting, in the dark beyond the light of the watch-fires on the wall.

At once there was great jostling and cursing as each troop tried to get first to the gate and the ending of their march. Though the officials yelled and plied their whips, scuffles broke out and some blades were drawn. A troop of whitecollar uruks from Barad-dûr charged into the Durthang line and threw them into confusion.

Dazed as he was with pain and weariness, Sam woke up, grasped quickly at his chance, and threw himself to the ground, dragging Frodo down with him.

ORCers fell over them, snarling and cursing. Slowly on hand and knee the hobbits crawled away out of the turmoil, until at last unnoticed they dropped over the further edge of the road.

It had a high kerb by which union-officials could guide themselves in black night or fog, and it was banked up some feet above the level of the open land.

[Grey_Wolf]

They lay still for a while. It was too dark to seek for cover, if indeed there was any to find; but Sam felt that they ought at least to get further away from the highways and out of the range of flashlight.

"Come on, Mr. Frodo!" he whispered. "One more crawl, and then you can lie still."

With a last despairing effort Frodo raised himself on his hands, and struggled on for maybe twenty yards.

Then he pitched down into a shallow pit that opened unexpectedly before them, and there he lay like a dead thing.

[Grey_Wolf]

Book 6 Chapter 3: Mount Doom

[Telcontar_Dunedain]

"That's it master, you have a sleep. Sam will look after you," said Sam, and before he know Frodo was snoring away contently.

Sam stood up and looked out across Mordor and the instrial estate of Gorgoroth. Little did he know but this had once been a land of Gondor, built to keep evil inside. But as Gondor's power and might grew it's watch waned and soon it was once again made Head Office of the evil soliciters and the tower of Barad-Dur had been rebuilt. The evil solicitors took Minas Ithil as their own HQ and governed an evil reign of criminal solicitors from inside.

Now Sauron, the Dark Lawyer had rebuilt Mordor to fit his own purposes and made it once again great. Everywhere you looked there smoke. Great water-cooling towers pumpnig out steam and great chimneys issuing mass hordes of smoke. There were tips and building sites all bearing the Mark of Sauron.

"What can you do against such a power Samwise Gamgee? You are only a hobbit, you don't belong in this industrialised world. What can you do?" said a voice from inside Sam's head.
"Help Mister Frodo."
"Help him? And how do you propose to do that. He has already rejected your help to carry the Package. And do you even know the way?
"Mister Frodo does."
"But I thought he needed your help, not vice versa."
"He does, but I'll do what ever he says."
"How noble of you. Would you even carry him up to the Shredder?"
"Yes. I can't carry it for him but I can carry him, eventhough it may break my back. Thanks alot, anonomous voice in my head."
"But I was meant to be dissuading you, not persuading you. Oh fine then. If you die it's your own fault. Don't say I didn't warn you."

[Grey_Wolf]

Frodo woke up after a while and Sam took a sip of water, but pressed Frodo to drink, and when his master had recovered a little he gave him a whole wafer of their precious waybread and made him eat it.

Then, too worn out even to feel much fear, they stretched themselves out. They slept a little in uneasy fits; for their sweat grew chill on them, and the hard stones bit them, and they shivered.

Out of the north from the Black Gate through Cirith Gorgor there flowed whispering along the ground a thin cold air.

On the roads nearby nothing was moving now; but Sam feared the watchful eyes on the wall of the Isenmouthe, no more than a furlong away northward.

South-eastward, far off like a dark standing shadow. loomed the Mountain.

Smokes were pouring from it and while those that rose into the upper air trailed away eastward, great rolling clouds floated down its sides and spread over the land.

A few miles to the north-east the foothills of the Ashen Mountains stood like sombre grey ghosts, behind which the misty northern heights rose like a line of distant cloud hardly darker than the lowering sky.

[Grey_Wolf]

Sam tried to guess the distances and to decide what way they ought to take. It looks every step of fifty miles," he muttered gloomily staring at the threatening mountain, "and that'll take a week, if it takes a day, with Mr. Frodo as he is."

He shook his head, and as he worked things out, slowly a new dark thought grew in his mind. Never for long had hope died in his staunch heart, and always until now he had taken some thought for their return.

But the bitter truth came home to him at last: at best their provision would take them to their goal; and when the task was done, there they would come to an end, alone, houseless, foodless in the midst of a terrible desert. There could be no return.

These houghts yet again ran through his mind.
"So that was the job I felt I had to do when I started," thought Sam: "to help Mr. Frodo to the last step and then die with him? Well, if that is the job then I must do it. But I would dearly like to see Bywater again, and Rosie Cotton and her brothers, and the Gaffer and Marigold and all. I can't think somehow that Gandalf would have sent Mr. Frodo on this errand if there hadn't a' been any hope of his ever coming back at all. Things all went wrong when he went down in Moria. I wish he hadn't. He would have done something."