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Old 07-08-2008, 05:46 PM   #444
Durelin
Estelo dagnir, Melo ring
 
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Join Date: Oct 2002
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Durelin is battling Black Riders on Weathertop.Durelin is battling Black Riders on Weathertop.
A small figure, a small voice though there was power behind it…it was just a child. An Orc, but a child. Khamir’s confusion and internal warring paralyzed him. He had no time to recover any of his wits before it was clear they were facing women and children, those that even men who spent the majority of their lives in the wastes of Mordor considered somehow naturally…innocent, bystanders, non-combatants. There was pleading, and talk of desiring peace, from creatures Khamir thought incapable of human, much less humane, emotions and desires.

They had always been animals to him. He guessed he had understood that they must procreate somehow, but he had never faced the possibility -- or the probability, rather -- of females, of children. They had not even been animals to him, really. They were even less than that, as even their instincts were corrupted. But…now what?

“How many of you are still skulking around?” he demanded, not ready to drop his guard. This had to be some ploy. They knew the females and children could distract them, confuse them. Beloan quickly pointed out that if there were many more around, the creatures wouldn’t have wasted their time with all of this. But only moments after the man had spoken, two more females arrived.

To make the scene more absurd, the new orcs apparently held the strange friend of the old man, Rog, as a captive. It was the man himself who spoke for them, declaring they wanted to trade prisoners. Ridiculous. Khamir let his eyes wander a moment, as if he was watching the scene unfold in an audience. He looked into the faces of Rog and his captors, then turned his eyes back to the other females and the male child, and then he looked down at the orc whose throat he touched with his knife. He seemed surprised, too.

Khamir laughed, though it sounded more like a cough or a grunt. It was a short laugh of release, and he let his arm drop. So many things didn’t seem to matter anymore, even if the orc whose throat he had been ready to slit turned and took him by the throat.

“Does anyone know where the wounded and the...children are?” he said with some difficulty. What were they doing? What were they going to do? It had been such an easy decision. It had…

Before anyone could respond, Lindir spoke up with command in his voice. Khamir eyed him and his eyes flashed with anger. He did not like this elf ordering his men around. My men? he asked himself, and felt he should be laughing again. The elf then ordered the orcs holding Rog to release him, and the man walked away from his captors after only a moment or two. Surely they weren’t really making the trade! Khamir didn’t even think of putting away his knife.

Khamir thought he heard someone shout or scream somewhere distant, but he was again distracted from what might be going on elsewhere in the camp. Some of the orcs who were to be executed only a short time ago began to get up and walk in the direction of the two females who had held Rog. No, this could not be happening. They were just going to let them go? How many lives were truly involved here? Not just the orcs, not just Rog’s…their actions here and now would affect the lives of other men in this land.

The one-armed man suddenly felt a great amount of urgency. He stood, gripping his knife, almost physically wavering between charging the formerly captive orcs and racing back to the camp to make sure all was safe.

When all was finally quiet for a moment - as uneasy a silence as when the men waited on Khamir’s signal - he was sure he heard a cry from the direction of the pit. Now he was sure.

“That is where the wounded and the children are,” Adnan spoke up, his voice louder than he thought it could be. Khamir was shocked to see the young man. He had been here? He would have seen…?

With one last glance toward the backs of the male orcs, Khamir rushed off in the direction of the pit, almost wishing for the days when he had no one to care about but himself.

Last edited by Durelin; 07-09-2008 at 09:27 AM.
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