Elffled sped through the forest, her feet flying over the faint deer trail. She must get back to the dead mare! There, in Mithril's saddlebag, they had helped Tarlanc pack daggers and knives. After arming herself with a weapon, she would double back and attempt to rescue her sister. She felt like a traitor, leaving Elfhild in such peril, but there had been no choice if she wanted to save her. With not even a stout stick to bash over their heads, she had no hope of ever fending off three formidable uruks! There was little enough hope as it was with a dagger, but she had to try. It would only be a matter of time before they came after her.

Her steps slowed to a plodding trot as she came to the body of the fallen mare, and halted altogether as she stared in revulsion at the herald of death which perched on Mithril's body. Turning its bold, glittering eyes to her, the raven squawked, "Ahhdeath, ahhdeath!" The pet of some grim wag at one time, the bird had been schooled in speech, and his morbid proclamation sent chills down Elffled's spine.

Filled with disgust and rage, Elffled waved her arms, driving the bird away. "Ahhdeath, ahhdeath, ahhdeath!" the raven shrieked as it lifted its wings and flapped into the gnarled gray branches of a nearby tree, where it glared out at her balefully.

A convulsive shudder shook Elffled from head to toe. She could not let the creature's grim presence stay her from what she had come to do. Though she could barely endure the thoughts of gazing upon the courageous Mithril, she forced herself to look. There the brave steed lay on her right side, her legs poised as though cantering across a green meadow, but her glazed eyes were open wide and staring blankly in horror before her.

Distracted by the doleful bird, Elffled had not noticed the flies that had been summoned by the smell of death and blood. Though frightened away by the sudden departure of the raven, the greedy flies had quickly settled in a cloud upon the mare's scored ear and clamored over the wounds in her hindquarters.

Waving away flies with her hand, Elffled bent down to the packs and bags behind the saddle, but her gaze was inexorably drawn to the sightless eyes of the mare. Poor, gentle Mithril! Elffled could remember the mare's soft, velvety mouth as she nuzzled her hand for an apple or a bit of bread. "Rest, sweet friend. You served us well." Elffled tried to swallow away the lump in her throat as she touched the mare's neck. "May Béma watch over your spirit."

Trying to avoid looking at the mare's gruesome wounds, Elffled opened up one of the packs and took out a long knife. Buzzing noisily, a fly settled below one of Mithril's unseeing eyes and crawled into the corner. Elffled could not bear any more. The knife slipped from her hand and dropped to the ground. Immobilized by grief and horror, she knelt there helplessly as sobs tore themselves from her throat.

She wept until she was out of breath and struggling to fill her tortured lungs with air. She could not stay here! Elfhild was in danger! She had to pick up the knife and stand, but her legs seemed to be made of stone. She struggled to control her sobbing and get a hold on herself. Mechanically she picked up the knife, and, holding it in her hand, she looked down at the shiny steel. Blinking her eyes to clear her vision of the tears, she stumbled to her feet and turned her gaze towards the stream.

Across the water, Elffled could barely make out the body of Tarlanc slumped against the tree. He looked as though he were peacefully sleeping, perhaps taking a nap before beginning another one of his tales. For a moment, she wondered if he were still alive, although she knew instinctively that the fiends had killed him. Still, though, she was seized by a morbid desire to verify that truth for herself. As though in a trance, Elffled ventured closer until she stood at the edge of the stream. She could see that Tarlanc's old gray tunic was saturated with blood. Beneath his chin, there was a ghastly rend from one side of his throat to the other. Nearby lay the body of Sparrow, his carcass riddled with arrows, the blood puddled on the ground around him. He was dead! He was dead! They were all dead! Just like her family!

"The devils have cut Tarlanc's throat and left him to bleed to death!" What was the sense of his murder? It was so random and unexpected, accomplishing nothing in the scheme of things. He had tried so valiantly to save them, and he ended up dying himself. For what? Nothing! Her sister was now a captive of the uruks, and here she was, trying to summon up enough courage to go back and help her.

Sinking to her knees in despair, Elffled sobbed wildly, digging her hands through her hair and clutching at her scalp. These bloody woods resembled far too closely the field of bones at Pelennor, the only difference being that here the corpses were newly dead. Upon the old battlefield, the flesh and blood were long gone, and bone of man and horse lay jumbled together in great heaps, the one tossed indiscriminately atop the other. She must force herself to stop thinking this way, or she would make herself ill, but her eyes could not leave the sight of that gentle old man and the dead horse near him.

Tarlanc's throat had been slit from ear to ear - was that how her father and brother had met their deaths at Pelennor? In a vision, Elfhild had seen the blue eyes of their father and brother through the cavernous depths of two of the skulls which hung from poles as ghastly trophies of the enemy's might. Brave Mithril and Sparrow - their bodies had been pierced with many arrows, their life's blood spilling from their bodies. Had the staunch war horses of her father and brother been slain this way?

The blood... the blood... soaking and saturating the ground... The stench of blood... The bile rose in Elffled's throat and a spasm tore through her stomach as she was violently bent over at the waist. Spewing out her breakfast in a brutal upheaval, she trembled as one wrenching shudder after another hurled out more chyme until her stomach was emptied. Then her stomach churned again, and, retching and gagging, she felt her mouth fill with frothy foam which trickled from the corners of her lips.

Then like a flash of lightning, a vision of her sister in grave peril came to her. Elfhild! She had to rescue her sister! Guilt lashed Elffled's soul like the tresses of a flail. She never should have run! Oh, no! What if she were too late?

Elffled staggered to her feet and stumbled forward, barely knowing which direction she was heading. From far away, carried upon the currents of air, she heard the neigh of a ghost horse, the strident call of a great warhorse that snorts and boasts its strength and dares any to challenge him. The mighty destrier at the beginning of battle, proud and eager. The sound came again, or perhaps she heard nothing except the pounding of the blood in her head.

Suddenly, the ground dropped out from under her, and crying out, Elffled threw out her arms to brace her fall. Dry earth crumbled beneath her as a tiny landslide tumbled her down the bank, sending her to the water's edge in a small heap of rubble and swirling dust. The shock of the fall helped shake her mind out of its stupor, and she peered down at her own bleary reflection in the gently undulating water.

Shaking her head and blinking the tears from her swollen eyes, she cupped her hands and dipped them in the water, bringing the cool liquid up to her lips and purging her mouth of the stale taste of vomit. She had to get back to her sister, but that would mean walking by the body of the dead mare again. She did not think she was strong enough to face that gruesome sight once more, but she had to steel herself to do it. She could feel the heat of shame color her face as her mind screamed, "Coward! Coward! You are afraid of a dead horse!"

Trying to clear her beleaguered senses, she splashed a handful of water onto her face and over her head. Faintness from grief and exhaustion overcame her, and she struggled to get up. Another wave of dizziness rolled over her senses, and she feared that she might fall into the water and drown. Groaning in agony, she heaved herself onto her back and lay there panting, spent with the exertion.

Then she heard, like the pounding beat of her own heart, the sound of hooves echoing upon the ground.

"You little scum! How dare you do that! You know I will go after her when I'm finished with this one!" Sharapul roared as he watched the girl speed away on long legs. Then turning a face twisted with rage at Âmbalfîm, he spat out, "I ought to whip the skin off your little black arse for that trick!"

Puffing his cheeks out and expelling his breath in a long, agonized sigh, Âmbalfîm closed his eyes. "Aye, my lord, it was foolish of me to commit such an unseemly deed, but you have hurt me most grievously today, and I was not thinking sensibly! But, oh my lord," his words poured out from his tortured heart, "you have pierced my soul with the arrow of cruelty! I love you, and as all the world may be my witness, I would love you even unto death! You, my first and only love!"

"Be quiet, boy! I don't want to hear any more of your tripe! Your words are those of a weakling, a pampered little kitten who cries for his milk and sulks when he does not get his way!"

Sinking down on his knees, Âmbalfîm clasped his fingers together and held them before him in the posture of supplication. "My beloved lord, do my words mean naught to you? Have you not been listening to my entreaties?"

"Detestable little scum, I have listened to every last one of your mewling platitudes as you puked them out to me like an infant spills its vomit! Do you not understand?" Sharapul sneered as he tightened his hold around Elfhild's waist and plunged his other hand between her thighs to grope her feminine secrets. "Anything once between us is over! I'm through with you! I'm through with the slavers! I'm through with everything! I'm taking these voluptuous little wenches and running as far away from you and the masters as I can go! You are useless to me now, boy. Go someplace and seek your solace with other pretty weaklings like yourself! I - do - not - want - you!" His last words came slowly, one by one, cutting Âmbalfîm like knives drenched with acid.

The younger uruk rose slowly to his feet, a blank expression upon his handsome face, his eyes unseeing, uncomprehending. Then a long keening wail of agony poured from his throat until it seemed that the woods reverberated with the anguished cry. Knowing that the final farewell had been spoken and that Sharapul no longer wanted him, Âmbalfîm's first impulse was to fall upon his sword and let the relentless steel bite deeply into his bowels, snuffing out his miserable existence forever. How could any words cut so bitterly? How could his beloved lord be so merciless in his rejection? How could Sharapul throw away a love which had been the only meaning in their wasted lives? Dejected and heartbroken, Âmbalfîm turned and walked away from his lover and the unconscious girl.

He had dared to wish for something more than a life spent in blood, butchery and cruelty. He had dreamed of gentle things, of beautiful things, of love, of poetry and music, of flowers and white clouds that billowed high in the heavens and sunlight shimmering upon azure waters. A place where he and all his kind could somehow be changed. Transformed forever would be the vile skin, the evil in their hearts, the brute that lived in their souls, to be replaced by creatures of beauty and light. All were illusions, illusions! Phantoms that haunted and drove them to greater pits of madness, perversions and cruelties.

Though he knew that he would never hearken to the call of the sea and search for a home beyond the squalor and meaninglessness of Middle-earth, once Âmbalfîm had deluded himself that somehow he could. Alas! Now he knew it would never be for him. He was born of the accursed race of orcs, but once - it seemed such a long time ago now - he had been idiot enough to hope... for what? Now he was not even sure what that elusive idea had been.

The hope had died - there was no other way - all his kind was doomed to be what they were, and so now he would remain what he was born and destined to be - a monster - a killer - an animal who knew only the smell of blood and the thrill of the kill. With this immutable certainty, everything that he had ever cherished must be destroyed. The water must be polluted, the land salted, the flowers crushed under foot, and everything that brought beauty to his life must be destroyed! Sharapul must die and die by his lover's own hand!

Sheets of red flame sluiced over Âmbalfîm's eyes, erupting and pouring over his vision until the very skies were bathed in a wash of crimson. A look of sheer madness upon his face, a reversion to the harsh bestial side of his ancestry, Âmbalfîm drew his sword, the metal swishing as it flew from the scabbard. Lifting it above his head, he screamed like one of the wailing spirits of the damned as he turned and bore down upon Sharapul.

Sharapul watched Âmbalfîm's eyes as he ran towards him, for the eyes were the signals that the warrior must read. Only the eyes gave away what the mind was planning. While others might have laughed at this weakling, Sharapul was uncertain. Unable to believe such insanity on the part of his weak, servile bottom boy, Sharapul was slower in reacting than he normally would have been. "Always a bad mistake to be surprised by anything," he chided himself as he moved the crumpled form of Elfhild to his left arm.

"Come to me, my sweet, jealous boy," he taunted, crooking his finger at him. Waiting until Âmbalfîm had almost closed the distance, Sharapul shoved the unconscious girl towards the younger orc. Drawing his sword, he stepped quickly to the side out of Âmbalfîm's path.

Too late Âmbalfîm realized what the Man-swiver had planned, and unable to swerve aside in time, the momentum of his thundering charge carried him into a collision course with the girl's limp body. Plowing into Elfhild with a shuddering groan, the full force of his charge was dissipated by the fragile form of the unconscious girl. She was knocked to the side, falling as a corpse to the ground. Thrown off balance by the impact, Âmbalfîm struggled frantically to right himself, but he found his feet tangling over one of her legs and he toppled face-forward to the ground.

"Stupid little bitch boy," Sharapul growled low under his breath as he flung himself upon the downed uruk. Lifting the hilt, he brought it down savagely upon the handsome uruk's head. A rolling growl in his throat, Sharapul watched the dark blood as it seeped through the lustrous black mane and trickled down onto the ground beneath Âmbalfîm's head.

"That will teach you, boy!" Cleaning the blood from his scimitar on Âmbalfîm's tunic, he rose to his feet and then sheathed the weapon. He landed a vicious kick in the wounded uruk's side. "Wake up, you lazy pig!" he demanded, but no sound came from the silent prone form. "Âmbalfîm?" There was no answer, and Sharapul kicked him again. "Âmbalfîm?" His tone softened when his young lover did not reply.

"Come now, my lusty buck, you should not pull tricks on old Sharapul!" Âmbalfîm must be playing some jest on him, Sharapul thought as he looked down at his lover's supine form. Rolling him over with his foot, Sharapul gazed down at the dark face, which had paled to an ashen gray. "Âmbalfîm!" he screamed, falling to his knees and shaking his lover by the shoulders. "Blessed Melkor! I have killed you!" Sharapul gasped in horror as he cradled the young uruk's head in his arms and pushed away a bloodied curl from his brow.

The mighty uruk's head whipped around at the sound of soft moan coming from nearby. Her eyes still closed, Elfhild stirred from her faint. So fair she looked, so vulnerable and fragile, her pale skin pallid and wan, her unkempt hair like a yellow halo about her head. Her chest gently rose up and down with her breathing, and her body twitched slightly as she struggled to regain consciousness.

Sharapul's eyes followed over the contours of her body. Truly the girl was beautiful... and so very helpless. Just a quick twist of her slender neck would snap it like a dry twig. Or was she so helpless? He took a closer look at her lovely feminine features. Were her lips turned up slightly at the sides in a satisfied smirk, like a cat who had just eaten a mouse? Though she was yet oblivious to her surroundings, did she somehow know, even in her sleep, that Âmbalfîm now lay dead? Perhaps she had instigated his death! Surely she was a cunning enchantress, who had bewitched his senses and made him mad with lust, for if it were not for her, Âmbalfîm would yet be alive! She was a witch! He knew it! For that matter, so was the other girl! Was that not what all females were? Evil sorceresses who could sway the sentiments of even the most ardent lover of other males!

His thoughts racing, his breathing hard and heavy, Sharapul gently lay the still form of Âmbalfîm down on the ground. Cupping his head between his hands, he bent down and gave his cooling lips one last passionate kiss. Then he stood to his feet, his legs spread apart, a hulking colossus towering above the groaning maiden who lay helpless upon the ground. Her hands tied behind her back, she lay there almost peacefully, her head turned to the side.

Reaching down a meaty paw, Sharapul gripped the front of Elfhild's tunic and wrenched her to her feet. Only partly conscious, her head lolled back on her neck. He slapped her roughly across the cheek and bellowed in her face. "Wake up, you little whore!"

Her eyes fluttering open, Elfhild gazed blearily at the uruk, and then when she recognized the brute who was holding her, she screamed in fear. Dragging her by her tunic, Sharapul pulled her to where Âmbalfîm lay. He wrenched her around, forcing her to stare down at the prone form. "See what you have done? You treacherous Northern witch, you have killed him!"

Screaming again, Elfhild struggled in the uruk's grasp, her bruised and battered body aching with each movement. Her aquamarine eyes wide, she gazed in abject horror at the dead uruk lying on the ground. "I - I do not know what you are talking about!" she wailed, tears springing to her eyes. "I never killed him!"

"You know what you did!" Sharapul snarled in her ear, blowing his hot, malodorous breath out in a stream of spittle. "You and the other vixen beguiled both of us! I'm no fool! I know how spellcraft works! You wrought your cunning evil magic upon Âmbalfîm and me so that we would have eyes only for you and your sister! Your treacherous beauty put a tormenting itch to our loins, a burning fire that could not be cooled without giving in to your abominable lusts! You and your sister in shame have killed poor Âmbalfîm! He could not help himself, for though he loved me, he was weak! Sharapul is not easy to deceive, and I am strong enough to resist your temptations! You will pay, vixen! Pay in the currency that is precious to you! Your sorcerous blood!"

As these words echoed in Elfhild's brain, he shoved her backwards to the ground. As she fell, she tried to lift her head to protect it from the impact which she knew was to come, but still the blow left her senses dazed and her head throbbing with pain. Drawing a wicked curved dagger, Sharapul threw one of his massive legs over her, straddling her. The sunlight reflected off the gleaming steel, making it seem as though sparks were coruscating from it in white ribbons of fire.

"Aye, you have bewitched us with your beauty, but soon it will be no more! Before you die, my blade will strip the skin from your whore's body! But do not worry -- I will save your face until last. I want to watch your eyes as I deflower you with the blade of my dagger!"

Turning her head away, Elfhild squeezed her eyes tightly shut and imagined her mother's beautiful face before her.

Soon she would see it once again.

Here ends the fourth book of THE CIRCLES.

The story continues in the fifth book, THROUGH THE VALLEY OF DEATH.