[Third Age MOS AAR] An Uruks Tale

**Turkafinwë** · April 18, 2020, 05:14 AM

Yeah, that's not possible. Hobbits grown taller? What is this, a fantasy tale?

**Maltacus** · April 21, 2020, 02:59 PM

Prologue - VI

Malthur awoke with a start. He rolled over and eyes darted left and right, not yet sure why he was awake but wary as any orc of danger from anywhere and anyone, friend or foe. It was darker now, dusk or evening, with no sunlight left to scorch their eyes. Malthur looked around and could see his bodyguards rising or looking around. What had alerted him had alerted others too, it must have been a sound or flashing light. He rose to his knees, ready to spring up and sprint, still straining to hear whatever it could be. To his frustration he could hear his guards muttering and chattering, drowning out all other noise. He spat a curse and rose up. His eyes were adjusting to the dim light and he could spot the improvised camp, stretched out as it was along the forest path. Malthur and his guard and an archer company had the foremost position, flanked by halberdiers in the middle and the rest of the archers further away. The trolls were supposed to be in the middle but kept to themselves and especially with heir recent foul mood none had bothered to try to change that. But something was definitely amiss, Malthur could see that clearly. He didn't know what and that had to be dealt with

"Guaaard! With me!" he called out and started to make his way towards the middle of the halberdiers camp.

The orc chieftain found the heavy infantry mostly sitting or standing. He didn't bother to stop and ask questions but barged his way through to check up on the farther parts. There was some kind of commotion, he could make out a knot of officers arguing about something.

"...I tell you, I saw what I saw! They are coming closer!" a rank commander insisted. Rank commander was the lowest leader among the uruks, one company having ten of them handling a "rank" of twenty, obeying under a company commander with his second and a quartermaster. The name derived from the common urk infantry formation ten ranks deep, and one ranks typically stood watch or did other duties together, being large enough to cover the company's resting ground on all sides.

"If you don't shut your trap right now this blade is gonna come closer! Get your brains together, idiot!, and return to your post!" the other one replied.

Malthur stepped up.

"Shut up both of you! What is this mess about?"

The uruks turned towards him, uncomfortable with the thought that their clamour had caught the attention of their chieftain, and the higher ranking one found his voice.

"This little runt thinks he can get away with anything! Skipping his watch is what he's doing, it is! Here he comes, trying to sell me some babbling about the woods being alive and whatever else..."

"I ain't telling it is alive, dammit, but those trees are thicker and closer now than they were on my former watch, I tell you!"

Malthur held up a fist, silencing the two. Just what he needed - discipline thrown out of the door completely at this time. But there was something with that rank commander that nagged him. Like any other orc captain he had heard it all when it came to excuses and cooked up half-truths and outright nonsense to get out of doing ones job. That wasn't the case here, the rank commander stood to gain nothing by pushing it further and should have backed out by now before he incurred any serious punishment. Malthur looked further, beyond the two squabbling uruks and tried to make out the surroundings. He could spot the nearest watches standing here and there among the trees and he could see through the gaps among the trunks a little further but beyond that all was dark. It was such a thick forest it was truly hard to see anywhere. And damn, the air felt stuffed, close and still now. Quiet, too, not the strange creaking of old braches like before. Quiet, waiting... Was he imagining things? Malthur had a sudden sense of imminent danger, and knew at once he did not imagine.

"Wake the troops! Form up for battle!"

Then the forest suddenly, terribly, came alive at once and hell broke loose all across the orc camp.

**Alwyn** · April 25, 2020, 01:47 AM

They call wizards 'wise', but do wizards have to discern the difference between a runty rank commander trying to dodge his duty and a warning of imminent and unlikely-sounding danger? Malthur shows that being chieftain isn't just about being tough, it's about being observant and decisive.

**Maltacus** · May 01, 2020, 01:15 PM

Said hobbit would of course have to file a formal request like everyone else, which Malthur would review after Muzul making a preliminary decision and submitting it to the weekly orc administrative assembly.

I bet the lazy wizards have never even had to deal with a morale crisis requiring a single assassination of your own minions. Rookies.

I had intended to update weekly at least but have had too much boring things on my mind lately. Hope it returns to more reasonable status of affairs next week.

**Turkafinwë** · May 09, 2020, 06:51 AM

Originally Posted by Maltacus

Said hobbit would of course have to file a formal request like everyone else, which Malthur would review after Muzul making a preliminary decision and submitting it to the weekly orc administrative assembly.

That sounds very reasonable.

*ta-runda runda runda rom intensifies*

**Maltacus** · June 06, 2020, 04:09 PM

Prologue - VII

"Archers! Loose! Form ranks, maggots! Archers on the sides, halberds brace!"

Making the most of the necessity to spread out in a marching column, the orcs adopted the simplest of formations when surprised form a side, the entire column turning to form a battle line of the same configuration. When archers had camped at the fore and rear of the column, they now gathered to the left and right of the halberdiers and would ideally be able to depend on the infantry providing a shield behind which they could take cover or even better hooking up enemy infantry so that the archers could shoot at them from the side and rear. The great drawback in this situation was the confined space and darkness that not even the night-eyes of uruks could pierce very far.

"Get those fires lighted!" Malthur shouted. They could use the light, and fire arrows would scare an untrained opponent on occassion. But that was when you had the time to prepare both fire pits and arrows before engaging of course. This would be a lengthy affair before they would see any great deal of flaming arrows. Suddenly there echoed a dark voice all across Malthurs camp, sounding both muffled and at the same time heard at every place.

"INTRUDERS! TREE-KILLING CUTTERS AND BURNERS! TRAMPLING-BREAKING-HACKING BLACK VERMIN! ORCFILTH-BO-RA-ROUM-HOOUM!"

To the right the dark mist had rolled close to the uruk heavy infantry and branches swept out of it and grasped in the air, betraying the monstrous creatures that came within it.

"Lugduf! Get the archers over here!"

An unbroken line or tangled mass of darkness and branches was rolling towards the orcish line. The ground was shaking but it wasn't footsteps that could be heard, rather a great rumbling of the earth as it was being upheaved all around. Malthur came to think of Mount Doom in Mordor, where the ground would shake form time to time as the mountain boiled with its ever fiery wrath. The orcs stood in ranks, or as much so as the trees and darkness permitted, but they did not brace to receive the attack but stood staring, unable to credit their eyes. The wood was coming alive, coming at them. It could not happen, and it caused hesitation and confusion. Even Malthurs savviest captains were at loss for how to react. Here and there uruks edged backward or to the side, unconsciously drawing away from the wall of darkness that was drawing closer.

"MOCKERY!" the voice boomed from everywhere at once.

"TWISTED, TAINTED, DESPOILED!" it raged, and the roar was followed by a squeal of something that must be fear, a sound that Malthur could not immediately recognize, until he realized it was a troll that made it. Trolls never showed dread. They simply didn't. They bellowed in pain and rage when cut or burned, but they did not fear being cut or burned or killed. Perhaps too stupid or too strong, the orcs had never bothered asking why. Yet here was something far worse, something that frightened Olog-Hai.

Far to his right, the orcs clashed with the darkness and screams and the sound of metal being broken filled the woods. It was nothing like a usual battle when blades clashed and both sides could be heard, this was the sound of orcs being cast about and trampled by whatever it was they faced. Ever impenetrable was the black mist that now crept closer to Malthurs position as well. He could make out a tree trunk here or a root there, and many branches waved momentarily, but that was all. It was the same everywhere, and he could no longer make sense of his halberdiers, they were being run over by the mist and confused screams and the sound of earth or stones rolling filled the air, like a rockslide in the forest itself. The archers to Malthurs left were edging back in disorder and just as he was about to call out to them to stand their ground a colossal thing came flying through the air even faster than a catapult shot, crashing into the bodyguards to Malthurs left and knocking him to the ground from the mere force of the impact. Staggering, Malthur got up on his feet and looked at what it was. Atop the crushed bodies of two uruks lay the dead body of a mountain troll in its black plates, limp and with unseeing eyes staring up at the ever darker sky. The remaining bodyguards looked at it and around themselves and staggered backwards, away from the troll body as if its mere presence would bring down calamities on them, eyeing the surroundings with the looks of one who is searching for a way out.

Malthur stood stone cold. He breathed heavily, unable to take his eyes of the fallen troll. This could not be happening. Nothing did that to a mountain troll, nothing broke his perpetual trump card like a dry twig in that manner. He had felt fear deep in his heart before, the cold touch of the wraiths that reached inside you and grasped your heart in its icy hand, but never had he felt his grip of the situation slipping like now. Everywhere, all of his army was falling apart in the terrible mist, crushed, thrown aside, grabbed by branch-like limbs and crushed in their grip, it was hard to make out anything in the dark. He involuntarily took a step back, stiff and hearing himself breathing heavily as if from outside himself, then another. Survival instincts and the orcs time-honed awareness of personal danger caught up with him at last as he still struggled with taking in the nightmarish occasion.

Malthur ran.

**Alwyn** · June 07, 2020, 05:23 AM

The way that the wood seems to come alive, the confusion and disorder and the effects on the mountain trolls have a powerful impact. We can only hope that enough of Malthur's soldiers have the sense to follow his example. As before, Malthur's instincts are a reliable guide to the sensible thing to do.

**Maltacus** · June 11, 2020, 03:31 PM

Coming up with descriptions of the huorns and ents thrashing the interlopers was hard, I felt like I'm just repeating myself over and over. I hope the rest of the story will flow a little easier for a time now.

**Maltacus** · June 11, 2020, 03:32 PM

Prologue - VIII

In ancient and forgotten days when the valar were young and Aule created the dwarves, his spouse Yavanna foresaw the danger posed to the trees and woods of Middle Earth by them and all else who would seek to fell them for timber and firewood. And there rose the Ents, guardians and herders for the trees. Older than old, eldest of all was in the third age Fangorn, Treebeard in the common tongue.

Ents, Entwives and Entlings there were, until something split Ents and Entwives asunder and the walked separate paths. Misfortunes and miseries of the world followed one another as Melkor the fallen vala set his mind to bending the world to his will, and his lieutenant and servant Sauron followed in his masters footsteps. The Ents saw the forests of Middle Earth ravaged and despoiled, and their numbers dwindled slowly as there were no new Entlings. Some say they retreated to find a last safe place in the woodlands that came to bear the name Fangorn, but that tale faded from memory to just another legend of things long gone. None the less, strange rumors still surrounded the forest in Rohan.

Bent on dominating all life and breaking what he could not bend, Melkor found the race of men easily corrupted but dwarves would pay little heed to other things than their mines and metals, and elves fled from him or resisted him. In his spite, Melkor made the orcs as the tragic and cruel parody of elves that they were to be known as. Equally jealous of the Ents, Melkor created the trolls of immense strength. But just as much as the orc, the troll remained a pitiful and degraded imitation and mockery of the real thing.

Melkor was defeated at last and banished, and Sauron rose, fell and rose again and the orcs and trolls with him, but the Ents were forgotten and finally little more than a legend. In the year 2988 of the third age when the ringwraiths came forth and Minas Tirith burned there was hardly anyone who paid heed to old rumours, least of all the creatures of Melkor and least of them those orcs toiling under Malthurs iron rule.

It had been five days now. The broken remnants of Malthurs advance party that had managed to stumble south through the forest and onto open ground on its brink amounted to about a hundred. No trolls. They trickled out of the trees in no particular order, some in groups but mostly alone, without cohesion. It took the better part of a day to rally the survivors, as Malthur reckoned anyone left in the woods would not be coming out of it again by then, and sort through what provisions and supplies were left and what condition they were in to march and fight.

They had trekked east, following roughly the borderlands between the forest and the grass. They dared not venture far into the woods again, but none wished to remain exposed to the Rohirrim out in the field, and it was painfully apparent how different ones position was without battle trolls and with barely more than a seventh of the advance party left. Malthur knew fully well that he had to reach Muzul and the rest of the army, and that he had to do it fast. There was no telling if the horrors of the woods were pursuing them or if the whiteskin riders of the plains were gathering to pick them off while they were divided. Once or twice they had seen a rider far away, but none knew if they had spotted the orcs predicament.

In contrast, it was not a matter of if, but when, someone would make a move against Malthur. A defeated chieftain was no chieftain.

**Turkafinwë** · June 15, 2020, 05:14 AM

I agree with Alwyn, the rising of the forest is done beautifully. To be there at that moment must've been horrifying. I do not disbelieve that even Olog-Hai would sense fear then. Just like the desperation and bad fortunes for Malthur are very well conveyed in the last chapter.

Great stuff!

**Alwyn** · June 20, 2020, 01:00 AM

The history going back to Melkor is well told, the parallel of orcs as a parody of elves and trolls as a parody of ents connects well with recent events in the AAR. Surely, even in this desperate situation, or noble hero will think of a way to recover - maybe there's another orc army he can 'borrow', or something. This can't be Malthur's end, can it - unless the significance of the shift in title from An Orcs Tale to An Uruks Tale is that Malthur isn't actually the hero of this AAR.

**Maltacus** · June 20, 2020, 03:43 PM

It's continually amusing how the bullying, murderous, backstabbing and generally completely despicable orc chieftain has become the "noble hero" of the readers.

Hmm, yes, things are really going downward now it seems... Maybe he can advertise for new recruits? "Flexible working hours and plentiful opportunities of advancement..."

**Alwyn** · June 21, 2020, 03:07 AM

Malthur's nobility is subtle and special.

Of course, advertising would be typical of Malthur's commitment to giving everyone a chance (just another sign of his noble character). I'll help write the advert.

Pitch for Malthur's Recruitment Ad