It was still hot, but not unbearably so,  and they  returned to their labors, clearing blocked watercourses  and planting Goldberry's  seeds in every damp hollow they could  find. And then the rains  came.

Thunder startled them out  of sleep one early dawn, and Lash sprang  up with a shout. "Hurry!  I have not heard thunder like that since before the  Dark Lord's  War – if it rains now as it used to, we will not be dry again  until  the next moon! We must find shelter."

They caught  up their few belongings  and hurried. A mile before they stopped  for the night they had passed one of the  ruined fortresses, and  they made for it now, the thunder rumbling on all sides  like boulders  rolling together. The skies opened just before they reached the  gate and dumped a flood of cold water on their heads, and they ran in, bumping  into each other in their haste, soaked and laughing.

Laughing,  even the  orcs. Frodo remembered orc laughter when he was prisoner  in the Tower room; then  it had been terrifying, cruel – the  unholy glee of armored warriors tormenting  something little and naked. But this was only the joy of being alive, of  outrunning  the storm and being caught by the rain at last, drenched but  unharmed.  He looked from one to another of them, thinking they were not so  ugly  after all, or maybe he was just getting used to them. Then he met Yarga's eyes, and the orc's laughter stopped abruptly and  his eyes were cold as stones.

The fortress had yet one room with an unbroken roof, and they  took refuge there. They found  a supply of cut wood next to what had been the  guardroom, and they  kindled a fire and huddled around it to get dry, shivering,  but in high spirits still.

"I thought it never rained in Mordor,"  Frodo  said, trying to wring the water out of his cloak.

"Storms  in the  autumn," said Lash. "Or there used to be, before the War.  The Moon of Storms, we called it. A little rain in the winter,  but not the wind and thunder. Dry the  rest of the year."

Radagast  had set the water pail out in the rain to  fill, and now he hung  it over the fire to heat. "You know the weather,  Lash."

"A  hunter must know the weather. The animals do."

"You were  a hunter? Before the War?"

Lash snorted. "Before and during  – orcs like  meat! Hunter and tracker, but there was little to  hunt, towards the  end."

"And Canohando was messenger."  Radagast spoke carelessly, pulling  mugs out of his sack and making  tea. "What did you do, Yarga?"

Yarga  smiled horribly and  looked at Frodo. "Torturer, in Lugburz. You would have come  to  me, Ring-bearer, if your slave had not rescued you."

Frodo's  mind  reeled and he struggled not to let it show in his face. Then  Radagast was beside  him, gripping his shoulder, pressing a steaming  mug of tea into his hands, and he steadied.

"How did you happen to be in the outpost with Lash, at the  end?" Radagast asked, his voice as placid as ever.

"I ran away." The orc  snarled, glaring, even at the other orcs. "I killed a prisoner before he  spoke –  I ran to save my life."

"You killed him – why?  By accident?"

Yarga  bared his teeth. "He screamed too loud.  He hurt my ears and I slit his throat."  He met Frodo's eyes, his  smile malevolent. "Perhaps I would have slit your throat,  Ring-bearer. Then the Ring would never have reached the Mountain."

Lash leaned toward the fire, refilling his mug. "And then it would not  be raining. I would rather have the rain."

Yarga  turned on him, fury in his face, and Canohando thrust himself  between them. He said nothing, looking  from one to the other,  and after a long moment Yarga's eyes fell. He let  Radagast hand  him his tea mug and sat down, nursing the drink sullenly. The  wizard  called Frodo to him with a jerk of his head, and handed him pans  and meat  and parched grain. Frodo put his mind to his cooking  and tried not to think  about the bloodlust he had seen in Yarga's  eyes.

####

The  storm lasted all day. As night  drew down, the wind died away and the only sound  was the rain beating heavily on the flags of the courtyard outside.  Frodo stood in the open doorway watching the light fade, drops of water splashing up from the pavement onto his bare feet.

He  had come here of his own will. He had not counted on meeting his  past in such a graphic  way, of course. Or what would have been his past, if not for Sam. How ironic, of  half a million orcs in  Mordor, that one of the three who remained should be  Yarga, who would have been his torturer! His executioner, probably. Yarga might still be his executioner.

Faramir had warned him.

Radagast  sat by the fire, whittling on a stick of wood. "Come here,  Donkey. Let us challenge our hosts to a game of draughts."

Canohando  grunted in  amusement. "When did we become your hosts, old man?"

"When  we entered  Mordor, I suppose," Radagast said. He had cut a collection  of wooden circles  from the stick he'd been toying with, and now  he took half of them and put them  in the cooking pan, set it over  the fire. "This is your land, after all. I must  admit I had not  thought of it that way – it was Sauron's realm, and I had forgot  the land had other inhabitants with better claim to it than he.  Lash has  reminded me."

Lash looked up at hearing his name.  He was sitting  cross-legged against the wall, his head sunk on his chest as if he dozed.

"Never mind, Lash. Go back to  sleep," Canohando said, and the smaller  orc closed his eyes again.  "Explain yourself, old man."

Radagast was  stirring the  wooden pieces in the pan, letting them darken but not stick to the  metal. "Lash knows Mordor. He knows the land and the weather,  the creatures who should be living here – he is glad to see  the rain. He will be glad to see the  animals return, if they do."

"He  will be glad," Canohando agreed. "And then he will kill them."

Radagast  laughed. "He will kill enough to feed  himself, certainly. But he will leave enough alive so he can eat next year, and the year after that." He pulled the pan off the fire and dumped out his bits of wood. They were many shades darker than the ones that had not been heated.

"Mark a board for us, Donkey, here on the floor. Do you know this game, Canohando?"

Frodo had pulled  a half-burned stick from the fire and  was marking a board on the  stone floor. Draughts, Radagast called it. We call it  Kings in the Shire – I don't think I'd want to invite Canohando to a game  of  Kings! He blackened every other square and sat back as the orc examined his handiwork.

"Draughts, eh? Oh, yes, I know  this game. Orcs and Tarks*, we call it!"

"Very well,  come and play. You and Frodo against Yarga and me, since Lash  is sleeping."

Canohando gave him a sharp look at this division  of teams, but made no objection and said something in his own  tongue to Yarga, sitting in a corner fletching an arrow. The four of them  settled on opposite sides of Frodo's gameboard and Canohando scooped up the blackened pieces.

"Now you're an orc, runt," he  said. He looked under his brows at Yarga. "And you're a tark."  He grinned at the other orc, and Yarga  growled low in his throat.

"We are white and you are black," Radagast said quietly.  "You cannot make a tark of Yarga, or even of me."

"I cannot  make you white either, old man – your skin is darker than mine!  Call it black and white then – Yarga is no tark, not even in  jest." A look passed between the  orcs, as if Canohando would make  amends, and Yarga unclenched his fists and looked down at the  board.

They played until the fire burned low. Yarga  wanted to rearrange the teams after the first round, but Radagast would not have it so. "I need you to help me," he said. "You both must  have played long  bouts of this in your off hours during the War;  you're far more skillful than Donkey or I. There'll be no game  at all if you're both on the same  side."

"But we are, old  man," Canohando said softly, and he was not talking about the game. "Don't deceive yourself. Yarga and I are both on the  same  side."

********************

*tark – Orkish slang for a man of Gondor  (LOTR Book  4)