In Rubble and Spoil
The Fields of Rohan, a Few Days After
(Private)
His head still hurt. Likely, Drudkh knew, his head would hurt for the rest of his life. However long he was allowed to live, he would feel the pain of the thorns piercing and scrapping against his skull. Isengard and the horrors of the fetid waters were leagues behind now, but they were never far behind him. The Ent had let him live, promising a life of horrible servitude. The crown upon his head was to be an ever-present reminder of the Ents oath.
“Until the shadows of the forest return and cover the earth once more…”
The voice of the Ent still rang in the uruk’s stomach, a stone growing heavier and heavier as he moved away from the ruin and rubble.
He’d been forced to spend that entire night beneath the waters of what was now being called Treegarth. The Ent provided him with a reed to breath and told him that if he is caught, he would die a very painful death, crushed and squeezed like a grape, his head twisted round and round until he exploded, his limbs pulled off like fly wings. There was a malevolent glint in tree’s eye, a challenge, a wistful hope that the orc might try and make a run for it. Drudkh sank like a stone. The waters were cold and smelled of rot and festering swamp, slag swirled around his legs, cutting and scrapping against his submerged form. He did not dare to move. He stayed in that water until the sun’s rays vanished in the west and purple darkness swam across the surface of the water. Even then, when the watch upon the ruined fortress was lessened, Drudkh could feel eyes of burning wrath upon him. He could feel the cold regard of hungry things and knew just how fragile and vulnerable he was.
An uruk made to fear was a terrible thing. They were not meant to be afraid yet know that was all he could conceive. His fingers were stiff and unbending in the cold air, nearly breaking as he tried to form them into fists. He’d been in the water so long now that he could smell his wounds festering.
Once free of Isengard and free of the weight of the eyes of Ents, Drudkh ran. He ran for a day and a half in any direction that took his fancy. He was heedless and careless. His fear and trepidation were the only things that gave him the energy to keep moving. His feet hurt, his limbs ached, and his head throbbed. Yet he could not slow. There was no distance he could reach that was far enough away from the rubble and spoil of Isengard. The smell of his fellow uruk’s bodies, rotting and floating in fetid waters still clung to him like pond scum. He could still feel the cold of the dark waters beneath the forges, could still see in his mind’s eye the things that swam in those waters after they’d despoiled the ironworks, all tentacles and eyes and teeth.
He shuddered. The sun was hot and high above him but he felt not a bit of its warmth. He crested a hill and stopped, collapsed. The air in his lungs was thin, barely allowing him to breath at all. He lay there, an uruk, an abomination of nature and anathema to all goodness amidst a field of green and yellow and blue. He would have laughed at such divine obscenities if he but had the breath to do so. He lay then, silent, staring at the cerulean sky as the sun wheeled over him. Clouds drifted by, considering him before moving off, twisting like ever changing shapeshifters. He envied them. He wished he could shed the corporeal shell that he’d been forced into. He had been born without his consent, brought roaring and screaming into a world that hated everything he was and everything that he was believed to stand for. He’d been fed a diet of hateful philosophy and megalomaniac rhetoric until his own thoughts were naught but mirrors to the hatred of his masters and his fellows, a bright mass of shining dark malignancy, festering in the heart of Middle-earth.
What was he now? What is an uruk bereft of purpose? Drudkh had no one to hate but himself and no weapon upon which to bloody that hatred. He was trapped, just as the Ent had wanted. Trees were cruel creatures, spiteful with long memories and twisting plots.
Drudkh sat up and stared south, in the direction of Isengard. A small grove of trees stood at the bottom of the hill. They towered over the ground with shadows that dripped of verdant blood. There had been no trees there when he was at the bottom of the hill. They did not move, but he could see
things that suggested movement to him, intent and consideration of him. Perhaps he ought to walk down that hill and enter the grove, waiting for an eternal embrace.
A crow appeared beside him, materializing out of the stone for all he knew, and cawed at him. The raucous sound startling him out of his existential stupor.
“Thornspawn!” the bird cried.
Drudkh stared fixed at the beast, not daring to speak or move.
“Thornspawn!” the creature repeated. “Find others! Find others! Thornspawn! Find others!”
Drudkh didn’t understand. He squinted at the bird, tried to reach for him but the bird hopped away and pecked at him. He winced, a thorn digging anew into his scalp.
“What are you talking about you infernal beast?”
“Thornspawn!”
“What is Thornspawn?” he roared. The crow fluffed up its feathers in agitation. “Oh,” the uruk said, realization coming to him with the cold grip of iron fingers. “The Ent.”
The crow bobbed its head. “Find others! Find others! Thornspawn! Wait! Find others! Wait! Find the Witch!”
The bird’s cacophonous voice was hurting his head. He tried to shoo it away but the bird bounced up onto his chest and pecked at his exposed face.
“You murderous little—”
The bird cawed and stripped off a piece of his nose. He howled and swung at the bird, but it was too light. It laughed and stared at him whilst swallowing the lump of bloody flesh.
“Thornspawn!” it cried like a protective ward.
Drudkh stopped. If he killed this vile little pest the Ent would know. He didn’t know how or why or when, but the Ent would find out and would crush him into oblivion or something much worse. He kicked a rock at the bird.
“How am I meant to do any of that?” he shouted at the bird. “Find others? What does that even mean? More orcs? What? What witch? Who are you talking about?”
“Thornspawn!” the bird cried again, unconcerned for the uruk’s consternation. “Find others! Find others! Find the Witch!”
Drudkh roared. The crow remained where it was but a flock of birds on a nearby hill took to flight, scattering and calling out angrily.
“How am I supposed to do any of that? I have no weapons. No resources. I don’t even bloody well know where I am! What am I supposed to do, eh you stupid bird?”
The bird cawed and a sound like laughter came from its bloody beak.
“Sod it,” Drudkh said and went for the bird, consequences be damned.
The bird, though, was too quick for him, too quick by far. It was hovering several feet in the air before the uruk had a chance to swing at it. He swung at the empty air anyway.
Then he saw a house, or the remains of a house. A fire must have torn through the area recently. The house was not in good shape. One wall was completely gone while another was on the verge collapsing. The roof sagged under its own weight. There was a stable made of stone nearby that looked in better condition. Drudkh thought he heard the sound of neighing, but that was surely just his imagination.
The crow cawed at him then fluttered away. Drudkh didn’t pay the meddlesome corvid any mind. The place appeared as though it had been abandoned long ago, long before the fire overwhelmed it. Still, there might be something inside. A weapon or something the uruk could improve into a weapon. And if there was a horse nearby. Well maybe the Ent’s mission might not be so impossible after all. Find others? He could find some of his fellows. Surely there were survivors from the battle, stragglers that escaped the slaughter and bloodbath? They would be hunted and harried of course, but they might still be alive somewhere.
Drudkh’s head hurt, the thorns scrapped against his pate with agonizing repetitiousness. His limbs hurt and his body ached. His lungs were afire, and his mind was far afield.
But he had a task in front of him now, and an uruk is good with a task.