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You easily follow behind the orcs, the stench that trails behind them more than enough to keep your pursuit. You track them for a short while, letting distance grow between yourself, your quarry and the men you have taken such effort to keep oblivious as to your nature. It would not do to spook them now, before your plans have borne even meagre fruit. No, the secret must remain exactly that. They cannot be allowed to die until they have served your devices, and so these orcs cannot be allowed to live.
The orcs keep up their pace, and before long you judge the expanse of forest between yourself and the mannish shelter wide enough that the coming slaughter will not disturb them. You keep your movements as careful and deliberate as you can, your instincts telling you to maintain your present distance until an opening presents itself.
And present itself one soon does. The orcs, though adept at navigating the wood in the darkness, are not tireless, and they soon begin to flag. Their hopping gait becomes a hurried trudge through the fallen leaves and snow and twigs, stumbling over debris and one another in their clumsiness, and the growing scent of saltiness in their trail is telling of their exhaustion. You let your lips curl back and reveal a sliver of teeth, your eyes still firmly shut to preserve your cloak of shadow; your predator’s intuition tells you that this is the stuff of prime prey, tired and defenceless with nowhere to run or hide.
Eventually they come to a halt, and you know the time has come. You slow your own pace to a crawl and edge ever closer towards them, keeping to where you know there is plenty of cover for your silhouette to melt into as you wait for the perfect moment to strike. It is as if you are back in the frozen north, hunting some particularly oblivious seals by the cover of night on the great ice fields.
They seem to recover their spent stamina somewhat, and one of them breaks the silence with a guttural, wet voice.
“Curses on you, <span class="mu-i">kurvanog snaga</span>! Your pathetic pace will have us seeing the sun! Move, or I shall thrash you terribly,” he growls in a bastardised language that is at once Éothéod, Black Speech, and some other language you are yet unfamiliar with. Perhaps one from the distant east? Your understanding of such a mangled language is middling at best, and you gather little more than the gist.
“You are as tired as I am, Gimtog, and slower too,” the other pants, his voice higher and raspier, like dull claws rubbing against a dusty, sun-beaten stone. “I do not leave you behind to paw in the dark only for the ire of Chief Gajakt.”
“And do you suppose Chief Gajakt will take kindly to hearing of your snivelling? Up with you!” The larger one, now known to you as Gimtog, strides forward, and you hear the distinct noise of flesh striking flesh. His subordinate yelps and falls to the ground before darting back, hissing.
