The horrors of the earth are not brothers of mind and spirit. In fact they are as much at each other's throat as the minions of the Dark Lord are with the heroes of elf, dwarf and man. They are the third factor in a bad equation. In this story they are but a pawn, but an important one.

Ser Catney Bolderchamp was riding his grey gelding to the edge of a mountainous region near the Misty Mountains. He was late and his attitude was quite nasty, but being in the wilds, who would really care? He even whipped his horse to gain more speed, and those that knew him also knew him to be kind to all animals, but not now.

A meeting was to take place high on a secretive mountain edge of rock and ice. One that could change his fate for possibly the rest of his life. He was late though, and nightfall was looming at the peak and ready to roll down the snowy sides. The wind whipped around Catney's head, and at times he imagined that he heard fell voices in the tree line near his path.

He soon brought his destrider to a slow trot, as the path grew rocky and more treacherous with ice and snow covering its edges. As the last bit of light now disappeared, he sighted a dark figure up ahead and higher than he hade hoped. A short time later the panting gelding made a few last jumps and landed on a large rock ledge that over looked the black abyss below.

'Halt..!!' The captain yelled it at the top of his voice, and yet it was muffled by his helm. His form was disguised by his black plate armor. Catney pulled his short blade quickly more by instinct than by fear. It was dark, but he could still see the captain and his stamping black stallion. 'You will not need that that blade here Ser Bolderchamp, and yet it is your blade that we seek.'

'I see you are a captain of the royal guard, but please give me your name sir', Catney yelled back at him as the wind howled wildly.

'I am Captain Major Silverton Hinebridge of the Palatial Royal Guard. It was important that we should meet in total secrecy as you had requested, but more importantly to preserve the mission. The king's enemies grow thick. I seen many spies about on my way here, so take, if you will, great care once our agreement is complete. I care not of your affiliations with men from the east, but it shall not enter here as a factor on agreement. To get to the point we need you to kill the queen and her brother. We will pay your contract amount, even though it to be unfair and devious at best.'

A smile slowly came to Catney's face as another idea entered his mind at that very moment. He leaned over and whispered into the gelding's ear to comfort her as she nervously moved about being this close to the larger black stallion. 'I agree totally and if you hand me the note of pay then I shall begin immediately. Please control your horse sir, as it is worrying my gelding.'

The captain understood, and climbed down off the enormous horse. He reached into a saddle bag and produced a rolled note that was sealed with the king's own royal ring seal. He turned around and handed Catney the note and said, I think you will find everything as you had requested. I must be going now.' He then turned and looked for the stirrup, when a severe cutting blow hit his neck with a 'sching' like sound. He never made a noise as the short blade not only severed the jugular vein, but cut the voice box in two and broke the spinal cord all in one movement. Catney figure aided the sword and hit the captain's neck from the other side as well severing the head completely. It happened so fast that the stallion never seen his master fall, and continued to just stand there unaware.

Catney climbed down off his horse and tied the reins off tightly on a brush limb. He kicked the bloody head, still inside its protective helmet, and it shot out over the side and down into the darkness below. He then bent over and with great effort dragged the body of the captain to the very edge and pushed him off with a grunt. The body disappeared without a sound. This the shivering stallion did see and seem to understand somewhat. Catney walked over to him though and began to pet his neck with his soft glove, while he whispered gentle words that immediately soothed the great destrider.

Hours later Ser Catney Bolderchamp was making his way into the foothills with the black stallion in tow behind his smaller gelding. He was smiling to himself as he went. He was working out several details regarding how he would achieve his new assignment. He would tell the royal paladins that their commander never showed but he did find his horse. He put the note unopened back in the saddle bag so as to make them think that he didn't snoop and was a sign of being honorable.

He knew not the reason for the necessity of the contracts, but it didn't matter. He was going to make a small fortune this time. He would kill the brother in a hunting accident, that would be easy enough. The queen though was a different story as she had bodyguards, and under scrutiny by everyone. He could do it though and once there, he would find a patsy for the assassination. He knew assassins where notorious to be coldhearted and callous. So he was prepared with a potion that makes one's eyes water as if crying. He would throw himself upon the queen as if he loved her. The whole scene would be so dramatic that it now caused him to laugh out loud.

He could tell where the snow ended, and he headed towards any lights that he saw off in the far distance, and made his way cautiously towards them. Soon he came upon a farm. His first thought he had was that their farm dog would sense him out right away. So he reached into his knap sack and pulled out a small slice of ham. He carried with him a bolt shot and so wound it up and loaded the bolt with chunks of ham. He let it fly and it landed near the center of the farm. He tied off the horses, then ran ahead and checked. It worked and the huge work dog was slobbering it right up. He loaded a second bolt and fired, hitting the dog in the throat. He died immediately without so much as a whelp.

Catney creped up slowly and peered into the window. Inside was a nice warm fire going and he could smell roasted mutton. An old man sat at the table dozing as his wife prepared their evening meal. Catney found a small twig and began scratching the edge of the window pane, until it finally irritated the old women enough that she went to the front door and attempted to walk out on the porch and cut the scratching twig off. The gloved hand slipped around her mouth so fast that she never made a sound as the bone dagger was driven into the base of her brain and shoved upwards just behind the spine in her neck.

He then picked her up and carried her into the house. He slowly sat her down into her dinner chair where she had had sit for years and had her meals with her elderly husband. He took his time and propped her up, quietly, while the old man softly snored away on the opposite of the table facing her. He chuckled to himself as he grabbed a few of the hard biscuits and then walked around and in behind the old man. He then dropped a biscuit on the old man's face. He didn't stir. So then he reared back and actually threw the biscuit hitting the old man on the nose. It woke him immediately and he said, 'Old lady, you have become nasty these last few days. An easy tug would have sufficed to wake me. Now you stare at me expressionless, you are so cold and mean.'

With that Catney could not help but began to laugh when he said she was cold. She is cold he thought, as he tied the knotted cord around the old fellow's neck. He fought for his life, but for just a short time until he passed on. Catney undid the garrote and began to swing it in a small circle as he began to hum a song from his childhood. The mutton was now done and so he sat down and ate the nicest meal. He talked to them as if they where alive. He said to them, 'Hmm...mother, father...I've been good lately. May I have more mutton? I can..!! Oh, thank you very much.' This imaginative child's conversation went on and on until he was finished. He then said, 'I'm going outside now to play. I can? Oh, thank you.'

He nonchalantly made his way outside as he picked the meat from his teeth, and made a sucking noise against the roof of his mouth. He casually peered around into the dark, looking for the path to the horses. When his eyes got adjusted to the dark he then made his way to them. He immediately pulled out his sword. The horses were gone..!!

Catney took to one knee and stared at the ground before him intently. He could track anything alive, and his experience now told him that there were three orcs. The overlapping footprints showed one was much larger than the others and also he was 'boss'. The smaller prints overlapped the larger which meant the boss was in the lead as they had quickly headed towards the forest ahead. Catney could see the horses were struggling as the smell of orc alone would drive them to madness in getting away. The stallion's larger hoof prints ran away from the path several times dragging the two smaller orcs with him, one on each side. Eventually they stopped as the horse grew wary and reserved his energy in the cold.

The gelding was a different story he could read in the prints. This horse was more than transportation for Catney, she was in fact like his pet. She was smart and even tricky at times, which Catney enjoyed, and now he could see she was playing with the 'boss'. At one point she had kneeled down and allowed the huge orc onto her back. She then got up and paraded around to show him that he was in control. She then ran like hot hell wind towards a tree with low hanging limbs. The crack was loud as the limb hit the surprised orc across the crown, and knocking him off backwards onto the cold hard ground. It knocked the wind out of him and though he tried to yell for the others all that came out was a sort of choked, 'Mmurghph'.

Catney laughed to himself as he could see the snow angel outline where the boss had struggled to regain his breath. He was a large orc too, at seven feet tall and possibly 300 pounds. The stench was horrific, and even Catney wrinkled his nose at the offense. He now began to run and no longer cared for the subtle clues that the tracks would have told him. After an hour he finally caught them going into the foothills while still under the cover of the woods around them.

He began to stealth himself immediately, and his senses sharpened as the thrill of his hunt was about to take off. He slipped up on the last smaller orc who had been dawdling behind. The boss had grown tired of whipping him for his laziness and no longer looked behind to see if he was still coming up the path. Catney took advantage of this and garroted the orc's fat neck and at the same time pulled him off the path, finishing the kill under a thick bush. He knew the other small orc would eventually turn back to find his comrade, so Catney jumped up and ran hard and straight for the second orc. Hearing Catney coming he assumed it was his now dead brother and turned to scold him, when to his surprise a sword tip went straight into his throat and the right hand dagger of Catney's ran hard into his rib cage, splitting two ribs and entering his black heart killing him instantly.

The enormous orc spun quickly and seen the smaller orc drop to his knees beside a man in dark cloak and clothing. He could not see how many enemies he had to face so he instinctively ran further up into the hills. It made no difference though as Catney continued at his own pace tracking and reading the signs in the dirt and soon into the snow line. An orc is not random, and they are the true creatures of habit as they rely always on their instincts. Knowing this from experience, Catney was counting the footprints as he went. The boss orc would allow his fear to build as he ran until he would have to stop and turn to see if his foes were near or not. Each time he did, he left a small circle of footprints. Observing these, Catney began to chuckle.

In time he had the orc's pace and the number of turn a rounds were spaced evenly. Catney ran wide of the orc's path. He would eventually draw even with him and then finally ahead of the orc. The orc on the other hand began to slow down as he sensed he had out ran his attackers. Doing so gave the final advantage to Catney, who waited for the orc to appear in the most obvious path.

The huge orc appeared down below Catney, and a grin came to him in his arrogance and he began to hum softly the childhood tune again. Just as the orc was nearing Catney a strange thing occurred. The orc stopped in his tracks and both of his armored fist reached up to his neck. He swaggered a bit and reeled around. Something or someone was attacking the great orc, and it was as if he was rooted to the ground. Catney could see that the orc was turning a sort of strange white color as if a magical spell had been put on him, but what was it?

Catney jumped up in alarm, but now surprised he too found himself unable to move and he heard a chittering noise from behind him. A nasty sticky white substance hit his legs and feet. To his shock he turned and seen his attackers. Eight large spiders the size of dogs had crept up on him from behind. At first he felt embarrassment, then it slowly turned to anger as he began to fight with all his strength to cut the ties that now binded him. It was no good, as he was continually hit with more webbing. He fell over and just happen to see the orc being dragged off the path not thirty feet away by even more spiders. Then a sharp pain entered his neck, he squirmed to turn and to his horror found a very large spider had drove its mandible deep into his jugular. He was being poisoned and he soon blacked out.

When the assassin Catney awoke he was in great pain and sick to his stomach. He could not move and his face was severely swollen as the effect of the poison slowly wore off. He could see out of a small slit of one eye, and the sight displeased him even more. He was hanging from the great limb of a forest oak in a sort of cocoon made from the gooey spider webbing. What was now attacking his senses was the fetid smell of sweating orc. In fact the orc boss now swung in his own cocoon not three feet away. The orc was wide awake and he was actually spitting on Catney as his only way of trying to attack him. Catney knew he would just have to endure this degradation and he focused instead his predicament.

His left arm was useless as he had reached up to grasp the dagger near his chest sheath, but the webbing had frozen it two inches short of its target. His right hand however was near his belt. He could not move his hand as it too was held tight, but his fingers he could wiggle within the glove. Using his finger nail he began to work it back and forth like a miniature knife. He did this for hours while watching the spiders run in and around them constantly checking them. He never moved though and even once witnessed the orc get an additional bite of poison for wiggling too much. In time he was able to cut a hole in his glove and scratching hard on the belt he moved it ever so slightly until he found what he was after. A small fishing knife in its holder was now in his fingers reach. He continued to work on this for hours more.

Eventually he was able to get the knife to move back and forth until it started to cut the webbing around his waist. He then freed his hand and wrist, then he cut downward between his crotch. pulling his legs up when no spiders were around and he freed his legs. Now the orc boss started to come around and again he started to hiss and growl at Catney. So he started to swing himself back and forth until he was able to kick the orc in the chest on the up-swing.

This infuriated the orc and he let out an enormous cry of madness and anger. Catney held himself still as best he could, because he knew the spiders would be back to poison the boss orc again. They came quickly, several of them this time and inspected Catney as well. Two of them drove home their sickening poison into the now shaking and quivering orc. He immediately went limb, and Catney realized that they might have finally killed him.

Another few hours past until the spiders went off looking for more sweet meat. Catney worked hard and furious as he attempted to cut himself free. The orc had been lucky and again due to his hardiness had outlived the poison and started to groan. Catney worked feverishly until he now was free of his bonds. He had only the web above his head to cut, when the orc became fully conscious again. Catney quickly cut the main webbing about the orc's head and the cocoon fell several feet down and hit the forest floor with a great thud. He then reached above his own head and cut the binding web in two. This caused him to fall also and he landed directly on top of the orc which soften the blow of hitting the ground.

The violent impact of hitting the ground severely injured the orc breaking his neck and yet he still lived on. Catney then took his dagger and cut the webbing away from the orc's powerful legs. He left his arms bound, and rolled the orc over onto his stomach. Catney took a leather lace and a belt and strapped himself to the orc's back which was covered in the sticky webbing.

This time the orc came to full consciousness, and immediately remembered this time to be quiet. He slowly got up onto his hands and knees as the poison still hampered his thinking and motor skills. In time he now stood, and he could hear the spiders coming from above. Again it was instinct that drove him forward without thinking, only knowing he must get away. He felt sluggish and sick. His body felt extremely heavy as if a great burden was upon his shoulders. In fact a small burden was on his back but his poisoned mind did not fathom it just yet. So he ran, and the more he ran the more the poison wore off. He ran faster and faster, until he could only think to try to find one of his own kind by chance in the great forest.

The poison though was now starting to damage the brain cells of the orc's small brain. In fact he was just barely conscious, and thought he could hear himself talking out loud which was strange to him. His mind cease to operate correctly, and he found himself to not only to listen to this new voice, but to follow its directions as well. The new voice of course was Catney complaining as he was extremely uncomfortable being attached to the orc's back. When he said out loud, 'Run you idiot faster...faster.' He noticed that the orc did in fact run much faster, so he started to experiment by saying, 'Turn right. Turn left.' etc. The orc would follow these directions because his own mind was now destroyed.

As they continued to crash through the leaves, brush, bushes, and trees it made a great racket as he went. This drew the attention of an vicious warg that had been napping under a bush near their intended path. At this same moment the spiders had again caught up to their prey. They began shooting their webs at the orc's back and coating Catney over and over again. They never saw Catney and figured the orc meat would be plenty. Catney was hopelessly bound to the orc and he felt for the first time true fear. The chemical reaction of the webbing had time to seep into his sweating skin over the past three days, until it felt as though he was on fire and melting. Still he commanded out loud for the orc to run, without even seeing their path as his whole body was covered and coated in the silk webbings.

The warg bolted right away and as he did he fell in behind the lead spider and so the other spiders fell off. They knew better to mess with a terrible warg. However their leader was not so lucky , as he placed himself in front of the warg, yet behind the orc. All three were now running at top speed, with the orc creating his own new path.

Later up ahead the orc could see two more great Urak orcs near a small stream. One was holding a tall yew bow, and he was trying to affix a black feathered arrow to it. The other orc crouched immediately into a defensive position as he realized that the boss orc was heading straight towards them at a very fast pace.

Sir Catney Bolderchamp now let out a scream for the orc to stop, as the chemical reaction of the poison and the webbing was burning him alive. The great orc boss stopped so quickly that he lost his balance and started to topple over. The other two orcs had been running towards him too, and had reached them at this most critical of moments. The spider however was afraid the warg was going to kill him, even so he let his greed win out and he jumped onto the boss orc's back. The warg also without losing speed jumped into the air and suddenly all six beings met at that exact moment in time. They fell over into a great ball of flesh, hair, fangs, and claws into a strange red pool. The pool was in fact full of a red swirling liquid, and it devoured all of them at once. The liquid boiled and roared as the bunch fought with all their might against each other and anything, and everything at the exact same time.

The red pool went silent. No one witnessed this, yet several hundred miles away and fifty years later a person evolved in a place known as the Ettenmoors. He was greatly feared and ruthless. He immediately began to kill everything he could. Sometimes it was for food, other times for sport and sometimes for silver coins. He was dangerous and a shapeshifter was the latest rumor about. old wives tales said he would be in the form of a spider, others said no it was a warg, while others argued it was a man that was known as a serial killer and a paid assassin.

Of course none of this could be true, and so the local people went on with their daily lives. Even the hobbits had developed a sweet little town called Hoarhollow. They had a mayor and many gardeners and farmers there too. Quiet, peaceful...serene.

The End