Rhavanielle followed Sfeithi's lead to the dwarf camp. The pair were still chuckling over their great victory in the Battle of the Bridge as they called it. The first hint of trouble came when no challenge came from the sentry. The second was when they found the sentry's headless corpse in a sticky pool of crimson, flies busily buzzing. His axe lay nearby and Sfeithi, now hyper-alert to danger took it up, dropping his goblin knife. A good dwarvish weapon felt right in his hand, though he thought using the goblin's meat hook to relieve a few of the monsters of their guts would be a delicious irony.
The clincher was the scene of slaughter at the camp. The goblins hadn't bothered to remove any of their own dead, but his comrades' bodies were missing. The orcs would have taken the cadavers off to butcher for meat. Their own dead they held of no value for meat and the fallen were considered unworthy of notice. The dead were simply failures deserving not even the honor of being heaped up and burnt.
Rhavanielle, behind Sfeithi had reacted more quickly. The tip of her staff was suddenly wreathed in flickering static. A wizard's staff, contrary to folk-belief, is not the key to their power. It is, however, a conduit for elemental forces as any good student of sorcery knows. Drawing static from the air at a word, the elf was ready to deliver a potent shock to any near at hand. A faint but useful light now seeped in from the open portal of the Dimrill Gate, so she bade the deva go dark. Had Sfeithi's eyes not been flooded with tears, he might have seen something of its true form.
The dwarf felt the stone floor of the hall with his bare knees but he saw naught of the chaos of the ransacked camp for his weeping. Tears freely flowed down his cheeks. Of a sudden, he stood and gripped the axe tightly, tearing at his beard. “If only I'd been here!” he exclaimed.
“You'd be dead,” she said drily. Sfeithi whirled around, red eyes staring. “But you weren't. So you aren't. Don't you think that means something?” Rhavanielle's voice suddenly took on a motherly cast. A dozen angry retorts flashed through his mind but none came to his tongue. The elf dropped to one knee and embraced her friend tightly, clapping his shoulders after the manner of the Naugrim. Sfeithi's dwarven stoicism returned in a flash.
“You're right,” he choked, nodding as Rhavanielle stood.
“No need for shame, friend,” she said. Needlessly as it turned out. Longbeards allow themselves an outburst of grief in such moments. Usually they turn to murderous- or suicidal- acts of vengeance. But something about his companion's tone soothed him. Instead of following the blood trail axe in hand, he thought instead of his lost friends and comrades. It was Rhavanielle who suggested a course of action.
“If we're smart about it, we might get revenge on these murderers. It's unlikely, but possible that one of your company may have been taken captive. Orcs do like their sport and we can't discount the possibility. That being said, we can't leave your people in the lurch if there's a chance.”
Sfeithi, encouraged now nodded. “I'll need to be properly dressed. I'd prefer to die in mail than these rags,” he said. Rhavanielle examined the trail that led westward along a side passage that looked to be some ancient path intended as part of a defensive system in case of invasion. After Sfeithi had kitted himself out in clothing and armor and found a usable bow, he followed behind Rhavanielle who crept along the passage. The deva was nowhere to be seen, the only light a wan glow from the elf's sword. Elvish swords often had an enchauntment upon them to glow when enemies were near at hand and he guessed that the presence of orcs somewhere nearby was what was guiding her as opposed to the intermittent smudges of fresh blood on the paving stones.
His hunch was confirmed when the blade's sheen brightened and soon they heard a masculine shriek followed by sudden and jarring laughter that chilled their blood. Rhavanielle had to restrain Sfeithi from charging toward the door at the end of the passage. An orc stood there, back turned to them. The creature was laughing too, looking in the barely ajar door to share the merriment with his comrades.
The guard didn't take note until it was too late. Sfeithi's bowstring buzzed and an arrow sliced into the monster's back. Lung filling with blood, the orc's choking wheeze couldn't compete with the cheering and shrieking coming from beyond the door.
In a flash the pair were at the door. Sfeithi slit the orc's neck to be sure while Rhavanielle peeked inside.
The room was an old storeroom near as she could make out. A huge ceramic urn dominated one end of the room, while rows of empty shelves were set upon either side. The orcs had turned it into an all purpose mess hall, guard room and campsite. Long benches and tables that didn't seem to fit the room were crowded with bones from what manner of creature the elf did not want to contemplate. Sfeithi peered in, his face appearing below hers.
Some twenty or more orcs were gathered around a dwarf who dangled by one foot from an iron candelabra fixed to the high ceiling. While one of them swung the unfortunate prisoner, the other orcs took turns trying to hit him with a long whip. Even more so than when the whip actually struck the wildly swinging dwarf, the orcs' merriment was provoked by the whip striking one of their own. They spoke the debased version of Westron common to Moria orcs, who owed no special allegiance to Mordor or its surrogates, so Rhavanielle and Sfeithi were able to make out most of their talk.
“Watch it, you fat bastard!” shouted one to another as the whip end stung his brawny bare arm.
“Haw Haw! Move faster next time!” came the whip-bearer's retort. A big orc chief sat on a high seat, watching approvingly the sport and shouting down any who might complain too much about the behavior of a comrade.
Sfeithi squinted in the light of the torches and candles that dimly lit the room. He tugged the hem of Rhavanielle's tunic and nodded toward the great urn. “That's for water,” he whispered up. “I'll wager its full. Orcs need water, too. Though they've the stomach for dirtier or older water than we'd ever tolerate...” he explained his plan quickly to the elf who smiled enthusiastically.
