Summary:
After a run-in with some nasty cruel elves, the orcs Shagrat
and Gorbag make a few decisions.
Story Warnings and Notes: Extra Squicky! Violence, Graphic Sexual Activity, Slash? (You decide!) Rated NC-17. A bit of an experiment for me - usually I write about Elves, but I got in touch with my inner orc for this story.
Disclaimer: These characters and Middle-Earth are the copyright of the Tolkien estate and this fan fiction is not meant to infringe on that copyright in any way.
Thanks to beta readers Aayesha and Lyle.
Feedback is welcome to Tyellas@hotmail.com
The
two survivors huddled deep in the thorn bushes and stared, angry and terrified,
at the ruins of their home. It was now a scorched battleground, and the
attackers were still swaggering about, merry at their cruel work. The attackers
were killing the wounded with their blood-black blades, stabbing each corpse an
extra time just to make sure it was dead. If the survivors were found, they knew
it was their death. Worse, they had heard it whispered about the hearth that
they might be eaten by such fell folk. Their killing done, the attackers peered
around to see if anything caught their fancy for looting.
This
final violation made one of the survivors find his courage again. "We can
take 'em, Shagrat," the orc whispered. He glared at the pair of elves
dismantling the orcs' den.
"Nar,
Gorbag. More than your belly's worth," the other orc muttered. "And
I'm half cooked, curse 'em." He stretched out a bowed, burned leg, then
crouched low behind the brambles as one of the elf-warriors turned their way. To
the orcs, the elf's eyes were stars of malice, his skin white as a wraith, his
voice a snake's hiss. Most sinister, the attacking pair looked exactly alike, as
if they had been bred from some bright enchantment to destroy orcs. The orcs
breathed together in relief when the cruel beings failed to see them and turned
away.
Shagrat
and Gorbag stayed huddled as the two attackers conferred by the camp's central
hearth, cleaning their swords on rags pulled off corpses. Then one of them
uttered a piercing whistle. Two horses, ghostly grey to match the elves'
paleness, stamped out of the nearby gorse. The elves mounted and rode away
through the half-burned brush around the camp. The survivors, scarce believing
their luck, waited until the last hoof-fall was silent before they moved.
"They
gone?" Gorbag murmured.
Shagrat
tilted his head, then leaned listening against the ground for a moment.
"Think so. Not a horsefart. Let's leg it." They staggered up from
their hiding place and walked down to the wreck of their camp, to stand
grotesque amidst the noonday desolation.
The
two orcs were of the same breed, both with strong arms hanging long to their
knees and wide, muscle-heavy torsos. If they had lived in the mountain caves,
their skin would have been dead grey. However, their life as
"toll-takers" of the mountain pass had tanned them and narrowed their
eyes to slits against the cruel sun. Gorbag was shorter, but strong as an oak
stump, with thick lips dented by his yellow fangs. Shagrat stood up straighter
than most orcs, and he was thought to have a well-shaped head, a crested skull
under sparse hair, a heavy, jutting jaw. They did not know how closely related
they were, since they did not know who their fathers had been. Not that it
mattered, now; their entire clan was dead, except for them.
Gorbag
peered up into a tree with a platform where sides and gobbets of meat were
stored. "Didn't loot the meat-cache. They just came to kill." He
stamped in anger at the Elves' senseless cruelty.
"Pig
guts and elf dung! Fucking rebels," Shagrat snarled. "What did we
expect? They took out Ugnak's camp two weeks ago. Same way, too. Set a fire
round the camp, then arrows, then they come in for the kill. Told 'em we should
have moved on." With his good leg, he kicked a particular corpse, one that
had been the camp's leader, and Gorbag guffawed.
Then
Gorbag started to drag bodies towards the camp's big fire-pit. He picked the
good gear off the corpses, just as the dead orcs had gleaned it from their own
victims. Shagrat went through the orcs' lean-tos, built up against a cracked
cliff of red sandstone, and dragged out more dead bodies. By the time they were
done, they had found all the clan's members and emptied their pockets. Even the
orc-whelps had been slaughtered by the elves.
"Any
of the brats missing?" Gorbag asked, and Shagrat shook his head.
"Stupid
little buggers," Shagrat grumbled. "If they didn't have the brains to
run away from the golug, they deserved it."
"Should
we burn 'em?" Gorbag asked. They had been roughly equal, warriors in good
standing (and smart enough to be craven at times), but authority was simple in
their clan. Shagrat was bigger than
Gorbag, and stood strong despite his injury, so Gorbag deferred to him.
"After
dark, so's the smoke don't bring the golug," said Shagrat. It was an orcish
tradition to burn the elf-slain if they could, so that, they said, the Elves did
not come back and eat their dead bodies. Gorbag grunted in agreement. Then, they
went through the pile of salvaged gear, warily choosing, each expecting the
other to start a fight over a choice item. Neither did.
When
they were done, Gorbag said, "I'm hungry. I'm getting some meat." He
went and clambered up the tree to the cache, and brought back half a cold,
roasted mountain-goat, only a little fly-blown.
"Hand
some over," said Shagrat. They ripped the side of meat in half, then went
back to the brambles to eat and wait. Eating as much as they wanted, without
having the meat doled out or quarrelled over, was strange. Again, each of them
waited for the other to snarl out, or snatch the other's portion.
Had
there only been one orc, he would have stripped his clansman's cold body with a
practiced hand. Had there been three, they would have argued without cease. Two
was enough to aid survival, and few enough that there could be a détente, for a
time.
The
sun was still up by the time they had cracked the bones for their marrow. The
light tired them more than their labours had, and they moved to one of the
lean-tos to pass the time before darkness. Shagrat rubbed grease into his burned
leg, hissing at the pain. Wanting distraction, he said, "Tell a tale,
Gorbag. Something about old times."
Gorbag
rumbled in his throat and began to recite. "The old ones said it used to be
better. More like it should be. There was the Necromancer keeping the great Wood
safe and dark, and goblin-clans all along the Mountains. Elves were fading away,
fewer every year. We fought the Dwarves and won the dark of Moria for our own.
We kept it, too. Plague came to the humans and our folk picked 'em off. We raped
their fat women and ate their fat men. The night belonged to us!" Shagrat
growled for the orcish bard to continue. "And then the war. And then the
war." Gorbag shook his head. "Ever since the war by the lake, when the
Great Worm died, and the mountain clans were slaughtered, it's been getting too
bright in these parts. Elves and Dwarves moving around more."
"Mmmh.
And I hate the wood-men. Didn't used to hunt us, but they do now," Shagrat
added.
"Yes,
the world's a foul place. Full of rebels who hate us. The heroes are dead, Azog
and Bolg." Gorbag told another story. They heard the ravens fly down to
pick at the bodies outside, but did not trouble themselves - the corpses would
be lucky enough to get burned.
At
dusk, they stood up, refreshed by the chill air and darkness. They tore down
most of the crude lean-tos and stacked the wood and rancid hides in the
fire-pit, ready to kindle a funeral bonfire. This task strained and broke their
uneasy peace. They cursed the
splinters, and the stinking leather, and the hateful golug, and each other,
getting angrier as they worked.
Soon
the bonfire was roaring, and they threw the bodies on, a few at a time. It took
the two of them together to heave their leader's body onto the flames. They
turned their anger against the corpse, spitting insults, laughing coarsely.
As a final insult, Shagrat pulled his cock out of his loincloth and aimed
a jet of piss at the flames, sending up acrid, foul steam.
"Garn!
Some joint you've got there," Gorbag jeered. There was more than one way to
be the biggest orc, and his leer took on a defiant tilt. "Now this, I'd
call a dick." He took his own penis out and pissed on the funeral pyre in
turn, proud of the heavy, dark thickness of it.
Shagrat
looked down at Gorbag's cock, growling again. "Screw you, Gorbag. I've seen
your dick standing - you don't gain an inch by it, same up or down. I'm your
match and more." He started to
drag on his flaccid cock-meat, glaring at Gorbag's crotch all the while. Anger
and arousal were always paired for orcs; raping, mating, dominating all blurred
in the fury that fuelled an orc's life. Gorbag
growled on the same bestial note and began to yank at his meat as well.
"Can't
get it up?" laughed Shagrat. "Me, I'll have to use two hands in a
minute." Shagrat's flaccid cock had been a long greyish tube. Engorged, it
was thick and maroon, an angry pylon of flesh, even the dangling nut-sack
reddened and swollen.
The
taunting goaded Gorbag, and he settled both hands on his hips, leering further.
"Nar, he's up. And a match for you. I'm wider." Gorbag's erection was
also thick, fleshier, rubbery, dark bistre-brown. He showed off by making his
cock twitch visibly.
Shagrat
stepped close enough that their cocks were a foot apart, stabbing towards each
other. Their growling was now a constant drilling note, the sound of rut.
"See you match this, snaga. My balls are always on the boil - I'll spew in
half a minute, then get hard again. That's a man for you," Shagrat rasped,
and began to drag at his cock again, staring balefully at Gorbag. Gorbag's
rut-growl deepened as he swelled to the challenge. Nearly chest to chest, close
enough to breath each other's musky, meaty reek, they jerked off together.
"I'll
beat you to it," Shagrat breathed.
"Not
a chance, snaga," said Gorbag, insulting him in turn. Then each threw back
his head and howled, their cocks spewing at the same time, gobbets of come
spattering each other. The fire seethed for a moment as a corpse crackled, then
burned stable again.
After
coming, they both unsheathed their crude scimitars and ran their semen along the
metal, then sheathed the weapons again. The grease on the blades would protect
them against the slime. With luck, the rancid spew would poison the next Elves
or Men they stabbed.
They
both started at a clear hissing sound that evoked elf-voices, but it was only
bodies in the fire, their fat starting to catch and boil. Then they turned to
each other again, both still hard. "Fuck me raw if you aren't my
match," said Shagrat, and then he began to roar with laughter. "Guess
that's why we're both alive after the golug. We were the only two with the balls
for it!" Gorbag howled along with him, and then they crammed their cocks
back amongst the rags they wore. Still eyeing each other, they began to throw
the last corpses on the fire, working together again.
"What
next for you?" Gorbag asked. "Join another clan? Maybe inside
Moria?"
"Nar.
Not me. Too hungry in there. I hear they eat each other. Some fellows passing
through said that it's better down South, across the Big River," Shagrat
said. "You have to go through elf country, but it's worth it, they said.
Like old times. Better, even. No golug. Men, bad Men, but they're everywhere.
Just means good booty and man-flesh to eat. Said they were going to a land with
a smoking mountain that blocks out the sun. A land called Mordor."
They
paused and thought about this. The dark name was pleasantly compelling.
"Sounds too good to be true," said Gorbag. With a finger-claw, he
picked wax out of his ears thoughtfully. "Still. I'm fed up with the shit
around here. Don't want to fight my way into a new clan just to have the golug
make me meat for burning."
"I
say I'll risk it," Shagrat declared. He glanced sidelong at the other orc,
eyes narrowed with thought. Gorbag was canny enough to try and shame him down.
It showed Gorbag had balls. And better to have someone like that beside you,
instead of stalking you. He looked Gorbag straight in the eye, and took another
risk. "Walk along with me. You watch my back, I watch yours. Done?"
Gorbag's
lips lifted in a snarling smile. "Done." Shagrat was a tough bastard,
limping only a little on his burned leg. Not like all the dead whiners. Lied
less than most orcs, too. He'd been right about their cocks, though Gorbag would
rather slit his own throat than admit it. Gorbag could go along, as long as
there was some benefit.
They smacked their hands together, sticky with semen and blade-grease, and shook on it, both feeling very noble. Together, the pair looked to the South, feeling a dull pull from that direction. They squatted by the fire for a time, planning how to travel without being snared by cruel elves or eaten by the hungry hordes of Moria. As they spoke, they glanced South again and again, dimly lured by their master's presence.
Eaten
by such fell folk= The
obscure book Morgoth's Ring has a Tolkien essay about Orcs. It says
that Orcs were "convinced beyond refutation that the Elves were
crueller than themselves, taking captives only for "amusement" or
to eat at need (as Orcs did themselves.)"
Golug
= Black Speech word for High Elves, also used for elves in general. Narn i
Hin Hurin, Unfinished Tales.
We
fought the Dwarves and won... The heroes are dead, Azog and Bolg =
The orcs' take on the war of the Orcs and Dwarves, Tale of Years appendix, Return
of the King.
Snaga
= Black Speech word for slave, references throughout LOTR, notable in
the chapter Mount Doom in Return of the King.
Please
do not reproduce or repost this story without permission from the author. First
posted Sept. 1, 2002.
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