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While the fun of the night’s adventures was not to be denied, especially not to His Malevolance, Bâzzog, Grimm and Broga were growing restless. And hungry, very hungry. There had been no raids in the past few days, no lovely sheep, or goat, or stray creature of the four legged or two legged persuasion to roast on a spit or boil up for stew or just gnaw on raw. Broga had hoped to drag one of the Elves off as a prize from their last encounter, but he’d been denied this toothsome delight; his poor reward being a poke in the eye with an Elven arrow, instead.
‘I wants food . . . great hunks of meat . . . not anymore of these Orcish, dried-up travel-meats,’ grumbled Broga from under cover of the trees. Grimm’s belly rumbled loudly in the night, drawing snickers from several of the Orcs standing near. Snickers turned to squeals as Grimm grabbed up one of the creatures, grinning wolfishly at it. ‘I’m so hungry, brother,’ he crooned to Broga, ‘I could even eat one of these nasty tasting bugs!’ He clacked his great, snaggly teeth at the whimpering Orc and heaved it up into the branches of one of the nearby trees. Broga, a wicked gleam in his eye, reached out toward another of the Orcs, all of whom then quickly scattered well out of the grasp of the Trolls.
‘What say we get on down the road, like the Chief wanted,’ Grimm whispered. ‘Find us something fresh to eat.’ Grimm motioned for his brother to follow. Broga’s brow beetled. ‘The Chief?’ Grimm nodded, pulling his brother toward the eastern perimeter of their little stand of trees. ‘Little sneak attack, remember?’ Grimm prompted, his arm linked firmly with his brother’s. ‘The bridge . . . just before the Shaws?’ Broga’s face had gone blank; no flicker of recognition for these plans shown in his eye. He shrugged and followed along beside Grimm. No use in trying to dredge up facts that had leaked from his brain. He trusted his brother - If Grimm said it was the Chief’s plan, then the Chief’s plan it was. And besides . . . the thought of fresh meat caught along the way had set him drooling. Visions of marrow filled stag bones quickened his pace.
The brothers kept well off the road as they ran along. To their left and now just a bit behind them were some Elves and men haring after the spooked horses. The last of the rocks that Arald and Dim had pushed clattered down ineffectively to a resting place behind them. Broga and Grimm could hear the thumping of the other two Trolls as they ran from their ambush site. Arald, it seemed, had been thwarted in his attempts and was bellowing out his frustration. Grimm wondered aloud if those two would manage catch up to them. Four Trolls would mean more than one deer would need to be taken.
He was pondering this question as he ran along, when the jarring sounds of Orc voices rent the night air. Broga shook his head and urged his brother to an even faster pace. ‘Can’t stand what passes for Orcs singing,’ he snorted. ‘Like two polecats tied in a bag, what with all their hissing and yowling like.’ Grimm laughed at his brother’s assessment. ‘And those noises they always throw in at the ends of verses – like some buzzard choking on a day old skunk. No proper rhymin’ at all. Gives me a headache!’
In a low voice, Broga sang out a few lines from an old Troll ditty. Grimm grinned and joined in, the cadence of the verses making their feet fly.
Troll sat alone on his seat of stone,
And munched and mumbled a bare old bone;
For many a year he had gnawed it near,
For meat was hard to come by.
Done by! Gum by!
In a cave in the hills he dwelt alone,
And meat was hard to come by . . .
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- from The Adventures of Tom Bombadil, ‘The Stone Troll’, J.R.R.Tolkien
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