Chapter 7

What might once have been the village of Hordrem. Now the huts stood in flames, half of them collapsed to the ground and the rest still crumbling. The tightly packed thatch that once formed their roofs was little more than thatch, where any of it remained. The mud walls held up a little better, but the rain would wash them away in time. The wooden fences would rot, the jagged lines that crisscrossed the landscape would fade, and nothing would be left to indicate that anyone had ever been there. Such would be the fate of the villages of Mordor.

But Madar, the main cause of so much horror was not happy, Madar's plans had been affected by a simple group of humans, they were more annoying than he thought. They were supposed to catch the first human village by surprise. It would have been easy to capture the second village the next night. But now they were divided into different scattered groups that had fled. Many had been easy to capture on the way to the second village, but more had died than I expected.

He would make the scum who raised the alarm pay but they had not yet found him, according to the humans it was a human and a cryo-human.

The more time passed and no news of them came, his anger grew, mere fresh meat causing trouble and escaping his power, he would be the laughing stock of all, all because of a few simple humans.

"News came, oh great Madar" Tolfo said, as he adopted a submissive posture before his master.

"They have found the trail of a group heading northwest, just over 30, we believe they may be the ones you seek so eagerly great Madar."

Madar pondered his options, for he knew that leaving and chasing the group would be foolish, due to the idiots that his subordinates were it was unlikely they would keep their slaves alive, but he also didn't want to let those who had ruined his plans escape.

"Tolfo, you are the most capable of all, I entrust you with this task, fulfill it and I will allow you to manage a unit" Madar told him. You could see the euphoria in his goblin body as he heard these words, excitement something dangerous for these creatures.

"Gather some goblins and go with them, bring me the culprits of all this chaos alive. Tolfo, if they arrive dead you will accompany them, understood?". Madar warned him, hoping that would solve his excitement.

"I will bring them back alive and kicking great Madar, they will surely pay for all the trouble they put you through, I will see to that".

"Good, they will surely go to the gap in the mountain range, secure them before they get there, beware of the groups there, they are humans who hate orcs, they only listen to the dark lord's orders."

Once he saw Tolfo's group depart, Madar climbed onto his warg, preparing for the task ahead. Storming the Watchtower of Ostirith for the second time.

_____________________________________

Dirhaël POV:

We continued on our way west. There was another split in our group, some wanting to go to the safety of the elves, it was almost funny that they would seek safety in those they despised. But since we fled the village, we were more and more certain that the elves had already been killed or captured, the watchtower must have had a good view of the human villages, it was impossible that they had not seen the burning villages. It was a no-brainer, kill the sheepdogs and you have a whole flock of sheep.

We were alone and the only option to get out of this alive was to get out of Mordor. On the way, we had decided to cross the valley of Ephel Dúath, still unnamed at this time. It was a suitable passage for the amount of people we were.

Nor was there any other possible, grandma's map, showed two known outlets, Udûn was a deep valley northwest of Mordor, formed at the junction of the Ered Lithui and the Ephel Dúath. But the same map warned of the presence of Orcs and an unknown terror.

Although the unknown terror already sounded daunting, the orcs were reason enough to avoid that place, According to the stories an average human could easily take on an orc, but facing the orcs would be stupid with simple peasants who have not picked up a weapon and some of them even show signs of malnutrition.

"We've lost a lot of speed" I said as I looked around, the group barely keeping moving, most of them without luggage. they had all decided to take them the only two wagons in the group. The other belonged to a merchant who had decided to leave behind all his merchandise other than supplies.

"It's a miracle that some of them are still standing," replied the grandma, as she calmly looked at the situation.

"We must stop, maybe if we continue like this they will not be able to continue" I said, although I could imagine the reason why the grandma had not wanted to stop yet.

 "We will do it in the next clearing, we will deliver a part of our supplies to those who could not get theirs out" I assured her, calmly.

As luck would have it, it dawned once we reached the clearing, dozens of people in groups depending on where they came from and their acquaintances. There was a clear majority of Tirharad, 30 of them, while from Horden there were only 15 left. But they all had something in common, faces of fear and pain, cries could be heard in some of them.

"We will stop here, eat, and sleep. We will be safe thanks to the sun so we will take 8 hours of rest, but we will leave immediately afterward."

In a short time, they were all asleep, the direct sun had not impeded their sleep. Although tomorrow they would not perform as well as today. Grandma seemed to be the only one who noticed this but decided to go to sleep, hoping that everything would work out.

I still had a task to solve, our tracks were obvious but we couldn't do anything with them and even if I could, the writings spoke of the Goblins' developed sense of smell. But a life on the run teaches you to get rid of your pursuers or at least annoy them.

I pulled out a bag with my supplies; poisonous plants and a few scratches with certain things could be your undoing in the forest. with due procedure and a bit of luck, you could force such situations.

So with a simple shovel that the trader had, I wanted to create some rudimentary traps. These had always been useful in any war, even modern ones, an example of which was the Vietnam War. The use of traps by the Vietcong deployed an invisible terror that became deeply ingrained in the minds of American soldiers, beyond the physical threat they posed. This constant fear of the unknown, of making a false step and setting off a deadly trap, generated a state of paranoia that permeated every jungle patrol. Soldiers moved with extreme caution, knowing that the terrain beneath their feet could become their worst enemy at any moment.

It took me 5 hours in total to finish what was needed and return, I had three hours of rest before the group got up, it may not seem like much but this body can be perfectly fine after a cut rest. Mana circulation was one of the major causes of that.