Morwen sat on a tree limb, twenty ells up an ancient oak. Below her passed fifteen orcs clad in dun rags. Tracking orcs. They wore no mail, though some had leather jerkins and all had iron and leather helms. They chattered quietly in their unlovely language, much of which she recognized as bastardized Westron. Their leader bore a shield on his back emblazoned with a stylized red cat's eye. Curious, she thought to herself. When they were set to work on such a thing, they were capable of skilled art, for the device was clearly the product of an artisan. In Imladris she has been shewn delicately wrought instruments of torture taken from an orc-hold in the Hithaeglir. If the Noldor of old Eregion had inspired to make such things, they could scarcely have done much better.
After the orcs had passed, she climbed down, light as a feather and quiet as a mouse and followed in their wake. Which was easy. The orcs were skilled as trackers. She followed this thought with the unpleasant realization that the Dunedan, in his haste, wasn't at skilled at evading trackers. Clearly they had caught some new sign and were on the trail. And as it was drawing closer to nightfall, they'd be revitalized by the darkness and move correspondingly faster, so long as they had signs to read.
The elf was frustrated that these orcs had been in between her and her quarry from almost the start, appearing in the Pennath Aegring, likely out of an old Rhudaran manor house she had been warned was an orc-hold. Unable to get round them and catch the trail ahead of them, she'd been forced to follow in their train, preparing herself to intervene as best she might if they chanced upon Angelnarth and his companion. That there were so many did not brighten her mood. She try hunting them one at a time, but there were just too many of them to make that a plan with much hope of success before she'd thinned them enough to alter the odds sufficently. And several of them had bows and she knew orcs could shoot as well as anyone. In the end, she had been instructed to find and accompany Angelnarth, not hunt orcs. So she followed as close as she dared.
