The Fellowship of the Fourth Age (Part 1): A New Beginning RPG

[Nogrod]

Gwerr

”Maddness! What did I say you?” Gwerr was cursing at Colagar and for a reason. They were running away from the remnants of the skirmish they had just taken part in. “You bird-brain! I told you this!” he continued, still exclaiming, spitting the words from between his teeth.

Colagar had insisted that even though they had agreed upon a general meeting place, it should be only the second choice. Ishkur had volunteered to go there beforehand to guide those who might come on their own and that was enough. They would have to escort as large party in one group as they could. Might would become handy if they were to get into any trouble, he had argued. It would also guarantee the best result as some, especially females and children, might not find the right place if all would be going to the meeting place on their own.

That had been proven wrong. So wrong. They had made too much noise as Gwerr had feared and were spotted by the guards. In the end they were forced to fight their way out. So from the initial group of 24 they had only three others with them able to hack or slip through the guards. It was a disaster. I hope some others have had brains enough to get there on their own, Gwerr murmured to himself as they continued their flight.

When the five in the end reached the meeting place they first met with Ishkur’s disturberd expression. “Don’t even ask, Ishkur!” Gwerr spat to the ground, still enraged and tense. “It was a bloody disaster, that it was, I say! This dim-witted orcling and his grand ideas!” he continued exclaiming but cooled down fast. There were many orcs that had already gathered there. It’s not all lost! He made a quick count. Fifteen all. That was about half less they had thought enough to put up a new settlement of their own but there seemed to be nothing to be done to it at the moment.

Colagar had clearly made the same calculations. “Quit standing! Let’s hit the road! Fast! They still might be on our tails!” he called and turned to run north, north-west. Gwerr glanced at Ishkur and frowned. The group set off after Colagar, running at an easy and efficient pace.

Glancing around to check that all were with the group, Gwerr made a terrible find. Uruk-hai! Now where did these baby-scum pop in? And of all the annoying Uruks there was Makdush, just coolly running behind Ishkur! Now what is he doing here? This is our rebellion, not theirs! It was quite near that Gwerr actually turned to face Makdush and his follower Uruk-hai to address these questions openly, but in the end he had enough brains not to.

Gwerr kept running but thought about it at the same time. So they will use us to defend the group as we are on the road and then they would do away with us and take the females to themselves... I see their game. But that remains to be seen. This orc is not going to be taken advantage of without a fight... And maybe we just outwit them? They are just inexperienced toddlers the whole bunch, breeded quasi orcs! Ishkur has brains too, unlike that cursed Colagar at times. We’ll have to come up with something before they strike...

[Durelin]

Khamir

Khamir had great respect for Shae, but the strength of that respect was tested whenever he was reminded that she was a Gondorian. And even though she had been a slave most of her life, she still held on to this idea of allegiance. It was pathetic to him, almost pitiable. But he saw it as a weakness. If only she could break free of those memories that tied her down to that nation. That nation that had abandoned them, had abandoned her. Sure she was a Gondorian. But to Elessar, the mighty King hundreds of miles away on his throne, that hardly mattered. She was a slave. She had been and she always would be. Mordor was her home now. Her home and her prison.

The one-armed knew it was the same for him. But he did not bind himself to any land. Mordor was home only because he lived there, at this moment. And if that ever changed, so be it. If it never did…

There was a way they could get out of this prison. And that did not necessarily mean leaving the land.

Khamir had always been about defiance, and there were scars all over his body to prove it, in addition to a missing limb. As a slave, he had exerted his freedom as a sentient being at every chance he got, and, once free, he exerted it in a way that he saw as fitting. He had been showing those who had once imprisoned him just how free he was over and over through the raids he and his gang performed regularly. To him, they were not so much about survival through stealing as they were about proving something. And he had never hesitated in killing anyone not a slave on those plantations, especially not Orcs.

For years before his escape, he planned it. But his plans did not center around escape; that was a later addition. They began as plans of revenge, to take the life of the creature that had taken away Khamir’s freedom beyond the chains of slavery. The Orc had taken his arm off in a rage, and the Southron later took the monster’s life because of it. He had almost died because of his lost limb, infection almost took him, and the master of the plantation was almost prepared to kill him, as an ineffective slave. Luckily for Khamir, he couldn’t afford it. What could be repaid the master was taken out of the Orc’s hide, but again, the master couldn’t afford getting rid of him either.

So Khamir did for him, and solved both problems.

“I’ve got the boys all picked out,” Beloan suddenly spoke from beside the Haradrim man.

Khamir grunted in response, still bothered by Shae’s defense of Gondor.

“I’ll point them out to you the next time we stop.”

Again the only response came in a wordless form.

“There’s one of ‘em right up there,” Beloan continued, ignoring Khamir’s seeming disinterest, and lowering his voice a bit, “that one.” He pointed to young man with dark hair ahead of them who was talking with a young woman, another one of the escapees.

“You really trust that fresh-faced boy with a weapon?” Khamir asked, finally voicing a thought. Beloan laughed knowingly as if he had been expecting those very words, and indeed he had.

“How many of us weren’t fresh-faced the first time you or anyone else handed us one, or found one, or even made one for our own?”

Khamir was silent for a moment, and Beloan waited patiently for a response. “How good is he?”

“First time on the hunt, as a hunter, and he bagged a kill. The only one, out of a party of four. He’s got a good head on his shoulders. It was his trap that caught the 41 birds.”

The Southron raised his eyebrow at the man walking beside him. “You got a spare blade?”

Beloan laughed again: Khamir had seen through him. The former had made sure he had a spare long-knife on him before he said a word to the gang leader. He had grown fond of the boy, and couldn’t help but have confidence in him. And he knew Khamir wouldn’t be able to argue with him. They weren’t in the position to be choosy about who was capable of being among the group’s defenders. Those in the gang were the ones with the weapons, so they decided who could bear their own. But even they knew that they would need all the help they could get if there was any kind of attack. Even a small unfriendly band could do a great deal of damage if the large group was caught unaware. And Khamir was not the only one who expected that to be when any attack would come.

Beloan handed Khamir the knife in a rough sheath that had to be tied around the blade because it was too big for it, and the Southron asked for the boy’s name. He smirked at the idea of the boy’s nickname being ‘Apples,’ but only called out to this Hadith.

“Here,” Khamir said once the boy – who seemed to be of southern heritage, though there was something odd about him – had turned around, and the one-armed man tossed him the knife.

[Undómë]

Zagra and Mazhg


Zagra loped along easily, her small form like a shadow to her sister’s. Mazhg, for her part, had run fast just ahead of her twin, her quick stride eating up the dark distances. She hardly wavered from the course she had set in her mind, though she had only heard of where the meeting place was to be and of a few of the general landmarks along the way. She had that feral sort of sense which guided her steps; that untamed, innate reckoning by which beasts, or those who live close to the land, know where they are bound.

There had been the scent of the lifeless sea, of course, to one side, and the sweeter scent of what small pools of water might lay along the way. In the distance was the rushing scent of some river as it wound its way to the sea. And the soil itself smelled different as the elevations changed, the water grew more scarce; or if it lay fallow or untouched, or had been cultivated.

It was the dark night sky with its white-faced moon and its pinpricks of stars, though, that was Mazhg’s surest guide. The bright orbs glittered in the dark pools of her eyes as she swung her head from side to side to check directions.

‘We almost there?’ Zagra spoke softly, increasing her pace so that she drew up alongside her sister. ‘Zagra hungry.’

‘Chew on this as we run,’ Mazhg had whispered, dipping her hand deep into her breeches pocket. A ragged piece of dried meat, unrecognizable as to its original source, was soon offered to Zagra who took it eagerly.

The miles had sped by in silence between the two, broken only by the soft slap-slap of their feet against the ground. Just over the final rise, they stopped, looking down at the group gathered there. Three-hands’-fingers’ worth, Mazhg puzzled out, counting the heads in the dark distance.

With a sudden start, the Orc group moved off at a run.

‘Come, sister!’ Mazhg hissed low, grabbing Zagra firmly by the hand. ‘The edge there, at the back, where the line is ragged. That’s where we’ll slip in.’

The two small, boyish looking figures quickened their pace until they inched in among the other runners. They kept their heads low, avoiding the flying elbows of their new companions and squeezed into a small opening further inside the fast moving group.