The terrain is rocky, large outcroppings of stone and earth hammered into mud by the recent rains. It's a struggle to pass through, with the ground sucking at your feet as you move forwards, eyes always down to find the best footholds to allow you to continue onwards. It would have been a fairly pleasant day if it hadn't been for the now ever present problems of sucking mud and the threat of losing a boot or a bag to the mud.
Apparently there's a village around here somewhere, somewhere where you can take your time, maybe find yourself a nice bath and allow the warmth to soak into tired muscles and aching bones. A warm bowl of stew, maybe a fresh-baked loaf of bread and some cheese. Even an apple, mmmm an apple.
But first it's ten steps over to that area of rocky ground which will, hopefully, make the going a little easier, then it'll be a little bit further to that embankment where the water will have largely drained into this little valley and then take some time to re-examine your surroundings. Oddly, the valley hadn't seemed so problematic when you'd first turned the corner.
Ok, step, then another step testing the ground as you go.
Some shouting starts from just round the corner, a harsh guttural voice rises above the others, before a small figure in a patched cloak and a faded uniform comes tearing round the corner, cloak flapping in the wind of his passing, looking over his shoulder in excited fear. Almost bumping into you his mouth drops open in amazement.
“Can you use a crossbow? I have a spare crossbow you see, can you use one? Never mind.”
Taking you by the hand he pulls you back down the small valley that you came down, half panting for breath, half giggling in nervous excitement.
“Not that it will make much difference but an extra bow will always be useful in this kind of thing.
He pulls you over to one side of the embankment and pulls a rope out from in amongst the mud.
“Ok up you go. There's a bush over to your left with a hollow are under it. Shouldn't be too much trouble to get there. You'll find my quiver and some other supplies in there, help yourself to some tobacco if you like. It's my own blend, quite good quality, even if I say so myself. Leave your packs, when you get to the top I'll tie them on then we can pull them up behind us. Careful the footholds are a little loose.
The Hobbit turns back the way he came from and nocks an arrow to his bow.
It's a mad scramble up to the top of the embankment, mud and loose stones clattering away from your feet as you lever yourself over the edge. The Hobbit scrambles up the rope, before helping you to pull your goods up behind him.
“Quickly, quickly. Someone'll be out to check soon and we need to be in cover before then.”
He scrambles over to the thicket and scrambles beneath it and vanishes from view.
Just for a moment, you stand there looking at where the hobbit has vanished to before his face re-appears.
“Come on, come on, no time you see. We don't want the Orcs to see just how many of us there are you see. Look, there they are.”
he chuckles to himself as he pulls you down beneath the bush into a surprisingly open and roomy little hollow. A circle of blackened stones indicate a fireplace with a small supply of chopped logs are stacked over against one of the walls.
The hobbit pulls you in and points. Sure enough just round the corner come two orcs. The first tall and thin with a crossbow cradled in it's hands, a set of rotting leather armour hanging of it's frame and even from here you can see the look of hunger on it's face as it stares at the ground. Behind it comes a much more muscled Orc, limping on it's misshapen legs and swinging an oversized axe. Mud and some other liquid had crusted on the skin and round the mouth of this second orc, leaving it looking as though it had come from some kind of unspeakable dinner.
The hobbit peers at them intently as the crossbow orc bends down to examine some tracks.
“Come on, come on. I left a trail a blind man could follow.”
Carefully The Hobbit takes a few arrows from his quiver and sets them out next to him. Fitting one to the bow.
“Yes that's it. Just a little further. Yes.”
The two orcs seem to have an argument as you watch with crossbow seeming to want to go back the way that they'd come but axe seemed to want to follow the tracks. Axe won the argument by threatening his companion and the two orcs moved down the little gulley.
“Ok, come on just a little further, just a little further. Yes.”
On the last word, the hobbit rears up and fires putting his first arrow through Axe's thigh. Axe howls in Pain and anger and starts pulling himself towards the embankment, but the hobbit forgets him, instead taking another arrow, and with a surprisingly tender motion he kisses the tip before carefully nocking the arrow to the string and sighting on the crossbow orc, he pulls the string back to his ear. Crossbow looks, sees The Hobbit and shoots, the speed of the shot sending it wild. The hobbit takes a deep breath and slowly, very slowly lets it out before releasing the string. The arrows hums as it leaves the string and plunges into the left eye of Crossbow who falls dead.
“I'm Denegar by the way, have we met?” Unconcerned by the howling and the cursing of the remaining Ord, Denegar shoots him twice, once in the gut, and then when the orc turns to flee again in the neck.
“The trick is always to get them out of sight of the rest of the orcs so that the rest don't know what's happened. Pipeweed?”
Denegar reaches into a bag that had been hung up on the wall and produces half a roast chicken and a loaf of bread and shares it with you before offering his tobacco pouch.
“Orcs are simple creatures really, remarkably simple, they start to get dangerous when they get organised by one who is bigger, scarier and more intelligent than your average run of the mill orc. Fortunately that happens so rarely that you can more often than not use the same tactic to destroy them or otherwise make them ineffective. The first thing to do is to get the scum to chase you. Nothing difficult about that. When they get the sense of an enemy they normally get cross and start to run after you. Especially if you run into their camp, make a lot of noise and set fire to the chieftains tent.”
Denegar chuckles to himself.
“Then what they'll do is send a couple of orcs after you with orders to bring you back so that they can torture you and eat you. So what you have to do then is draw your pursuers away from the main camp so that the other orcs can't see them before killing them. It helps to have a good position to be able to do that from, hence this little hidey-hole of mine. Quite comfortable isn't it.”
Denegar lights his pipe and settles down.
“So now, back in their camp they'll have heard those two fellows bellowing and screaming so right now they'll be waiting for them to come back. When they don't, the fear will start kicking in. They'll argue, if we're lucky they might have a fight and ill a couple of their own side before they agree to send another scouting party, which brings me onto another topic. Do you have a bow, or a crossbow. If not don't worry as I have a spare. Don't worry, if you hit things it's more of a bonus than anything else.”
Denegar pulls out an ornate looking crossbow, of obvious Dwarven manufacture.
“Some Dwarves of my acquaintance took pity on me saying that my little bow wouldn't have the stopping power of a good dwarven crossbow. I haven't had the heart to tell them that I can only just lift it to be able to shoot it properly and after that I can barely re-load it. I mean to put it in one of the display cases back at Bannockbury hall when I get back to the shire, but I've never found the time. Oops here we go. Feel free to take a shot if you get the chance.”
Denegar moves forward to the edge of the hollow propping his quiver next to him. A group of mybe eight Orcs have come round the corner
“Right, the trick here is to provoke a charge and kill them all before they get to us.”
Denegar climbs out of the hollow and draws himself up to his full 3ft 6in of height, pulls his bow back, pauses and then shoots. Felling one who bellows and points. Denegar waves and gesticulates at the orcs a couple of whom throw spears and fire arrows at him which Denegar laughs at as they fall short. One orc, a big fellow with Bloody armour and a large greatsword, starts grabbing other orcs and pushing them towards you. Still Giggling Denegar shuffles back into cover.
“Orcs they're so predictable.”
For the next few minutes there isn't time to talk, all there is to do is to load and shoot load and shoot. Denegar keeps up a commentary, pointing out targets and congratulating you on good shots, One orc starts climbing the embankment before Denegar runs to the edge drawing a curved knife before standing on the orcs hands and slashing it's throat.
The last two orcs start to turn to run back to camp, before Denegar shoots one through the leg and you manage to lodge a shot through the others neck. You go to take aim on the last wounded orc but Denegar stops you, his face surprisingly hard.
“Leave him, his screaming will work the rest of them up.”
He goes back to the hollow and takes out a waterskin and cleans the Orc blood from his hands and his dagger.
“This reminds me of an argument that I once had with a man-at-arms in Bree. He tried to tell me that I was being dishonourable and cowardly using a bow from cover. He said that the proper way to fight was to stand up to the enemy, looking in the eyes and matching them steel to steel. He waxed on and on about how poets told the stories of the honourable battles that had been fought and would be fought between armies and about how no-one tells tales about the brigands that hide in the bushes and ambushes their enemies. I tried various arguments, pointing out that my enemies would have absolutely no problems with capturing me, and roastimg me over a slow fire. I told him about poisoned Orc arrows and the kidnapped hobbit children and basically told him that these enemies don't deserve honour. He said that just because the Orcs don't fight with honour doesn't mean that we should fight without honour. We had gathered quite an audience by this point. I pointed out that I didn't have the reach of a man, elf or even a dwarf. I don't have the strength or toughness to be able to stand in a shield wall with comrades, I don't have the training to fight on a toe to toe basis with Orcs, goblins brigands and Angmarim, let alone all the evils that I've come across. What I can do is shoot an orc in the eye, and when I want to I can move, all but unseen through the countryside. I argued that I wasn't being dishonourable. I was just doing my part with the tools that I had available.”
Denegar knocks some ash out of his pipe. And glances over the lip of the hollow.
“He called me a coward and had his mates take me outside, gave me some practice weapons and challenged me to a fight. After maybe a minute of kicking me around the yard, he gave me a black eye, cracked a couple of ribs and, meking me vomit up blood. He stood over me crowing his triumph to his cronies before spitting at me and declaring me an honour-less coward, and a dog that wasn't fit to lick his boots. Luckily there was a healer on hand who made sure that I wasn't too damaged, but I was still laid up in Bree for about a week before I could walk again.”
Denegar offers you some dried fruit from a bag.
“I found out where he lived and I snuck in to his house through his window, and woke him up with my dagger at his throat. I told him that, he had won his challenge, but I could still kill him, anytime that I wanted to, because I was clever and he was a stupid bully. He didn't say anything but for a while I was nervous that the watch would come for me, but they never did. Last time I heard, he died defending one of the outlying Bree-land farms from attacking brigands. I remember feeling oddly sad about it.”
A noise commands his attention and Denegar peers over the lip of the hollow.
“This is actually the easiest part of the plan. The Orcs know that there are bad things out there and are scared. Not being completely stupid they want to know how many of us are out there and where we are in the valley so they'll send a small horde of goblins out to see what can be seen and what happens when the goblins get herded through the valley. Unfortunately what they'll find is the Goblins are a cowardly lot, so all we need to do is shoot the herders and then the Goblins'll flee.”
Sure enough the crowd of Goblims start coming down the valley, shouting, weeping and cursing, channeled by two Orcs, towering over the Goblins heads, brandishing spears and threats.
“Ok,” says Denegar carefully putting and arrow to his string, “You take the one on the left and I'll take the one on the right.”
As planned, the two Orcs fall, and the goblins stand around looking dazed for a moment, before Denegar shoots one of the larger goblins through the throat and the Goblins flee
“Well that's just about it. They'll spend a bit of time arguing about that before sending a large force out after us. We destroy that and then the rest will either flee back the way they came or destroy each other, splitting off in ones and two's to be hunted down at out leisure. Thus that little village is safe.”
Denegar gathers up his things and pulls himself out of the hollow, turning to pull your things out and helping you after him. If we just head down that way a bit, pointing away from the bend round which the orcs have emerged.
“Hounours a funny thing. He says while he walks. I would agree that there are certain moral codes that make us different from them. But at the same time, here's my problem. A little way in that direction there is a village. A lot of the fighting men have already been called away into one cause or another. Those orcs Knew that and have been coming here. To stop them, there's no army, the rangers are miles away and, frankly, have bigger fish to fry than sixty to seventy Orcs. The elves and the dwarves don't come this far, so all there was was little old me, and sheer fortune has brought you here to lend a hand. So two of us are going to have destroyed, a not insignificant number of Orcs and saved a town from destruction and many of it's residents from fates that'll give you nightmares. If I'd fought honourably, or planned honourably, I would have been flattened. Instead, I've used cunning. I've hidden, I've snuck around and set traps. I've killed wounded orcs, and allowed others to live to unnerve my enemies and as a result the village has been saved.”
He looks around,
“This should be far enough.” Denegar rummages in his pack and pulls out a horn. Taking a deep breath he sounds hit causing a harsh note to ring around the hills.
“It's an Orc horn, nothing special but I took it off one of their sentries a couple of nights ago.”
Denegar takes out another arrow. This arrow is white, the head broad and the fletchings held in place with a blue thread. It was odd but somehow the arrow was beautiful.
“That elf healer gave me this. She's a good arrow, always flies true and I need her to now.”
Again he kisses the arrow head before fitting the arrow to the bow.
“Hold your fire, you might need it to kill any survivors.”
“Survivors? Well it seems that it's rained a lot in these parts recently and occasionally there are rock and mud slides that can crush a man if they're unlucky. Especially when a certain hobbit has been piling extra boulders and rocks into place, only prevented from falling by one little support. I would hate to think what would happen if someone shot that support away. It would be dreadful, absolutely dreadful. I can't imagine many would survive.”
You can see the Orcs now coming down the valley, struggling through the mud. They've seen you and start charging forward tripping falling in the muck.
“Especially as that same hobbit diverted a small stream into this valley to make it extra treacherous.” Denegar Grins wickedly. “After it's over I just want to make sure that the Orcs don't reunite under one leader, but then I'll meet you in that village, it's just over that rise. I'll buy you an ale and we can talk about honour.”
The Orcs are getting closer. Denegar pulls the arrow back to his cheek, takes a moment before moving to aim at the small, fragile looking wooden support that holds back an avalanche of rock, and mud. An Orc in the front rank sees where Denegar is aiming and starts pushing back bellowing a retreat order.
Denegar fires and hell rushes down the hillside.
