Death of an Orc by Himring

Death of an Orc

Read Death of an Orc

The orc was lying all by itself among the rocks and it was very obviously dying. Probably it had attempted to drag itself to safety, after being wounded, and had made it quite some way before it collapsed. Now it lay still, as its life blood drained away, and the only sound it made was of shallow breathing. But its eyes were wide open.

Maglor had observed no sign of battle or of any people at all in the area and had come upon the dying orc quite unexpectedly, purely by chance. He began to back quietly away. But somehow something, maybe a shadow on the rock, maybe a change in the wind, alerted the orc to his presence and its eyes shifted. And Maglor could not help seeing that the orc was not only not very large, but also young. Despite himself, he looked more closely then and saw just how afraid it was. He sat down where he stood then, for it had suddenly become impossible to let this young orc die alone and yet he had no idea what to do.

If it had been a Man, he would have known. Over the long years, he had encountered not so few bodies of men, and women and children, too, along the coast, broken by shipwreck or perils on land, still living, but only just. At first, he had not shown himself to them, believing he would be recognized as the slayer of Sirion, but as time went by, it had proved not so difficult to make a little space in his encompassing sorrow and ease their last moments with a snatch of gentler song and whatever else he might have to hand.

But this was an orc. Men would respond to elvish skill in such a state; sometimes their minds eagerly seized on the images offered to them as if they had been waiting for them, almost. But in the mind of orcs a horror of elvishness was deeply ingrained, instilled by the Dark Foe. So how could any elf bring them comfort?

And yet—those dark eyes had called out to him, appealed for aid, as if this young orc was afraid of being left alone with its pain more than it feared him, the elf. Was he deceiving himself? He listened for the orc’s shallow breath a moment, hesitating. Then he cautiously hummed. No words, Quenya, Sindarin or Westron, just a low hum that might, perhaps, constitute a common ground between the music of the West and the song of orcs, if such a common ground could be conceived of. He paused, listening, then hummed again. Was it working? It was hard to tell whether the rhythm had changed, the orc had so little breath left.

He leaned forward to get a better view of the orc’s face, at the risk of losing any progress he might have made, but no, the orc was listening to him, as another being might that Morgoth had not had a hand in. He went on humming, soft dark notes low down in his throat, and something of the pain and the fear in those eyes went away. The orc let out a whimper, almost like a child’s, and its claws opened and closed a little, as if seeking something, like Men on their sickbed might reach instinctively for a human hand.

Maglor yielded to that appeal, came closer, still humming, and carefully touched its palm. Those claws closed and held on. Then the orc gave a small sigh and closed its eyes. And Maglor, son of Feanor, found himself sitting hand in hand with a dead orc.

All about them nothing stirred, except for the sound of the wind in the rocks and, farther away, out of sight, the timeless murmur of the sea. It took a while before he could bring himself to withdraw his hand. He eased his fingers out of the orc’s grip and tucked its arm against its side.

The space it had crawled into was already as sheltered as could be, so he left it there, scattering a handful of small pebbles by way of symbolic burial. Then he came away, shaken.

He had wandered some way along the coast before he could even think more clearly about it. In the moment of its death the orc had been free of the hold of Morgoth, he had felt that certainty in his bones. It was not something he had been attempting to achieve; he had merely been trying to ease its passing.

A long time ago, in the First Age, during the Long Siege in Beleriand, Maglor had attempted to sing an orc free of its bonds. The Sindar had warned him that it was not possible, that any apparent success would be delusion. But Maglor, in his pride, had thought he could combine Noldorin lore and Sindarin teaching with the power of Valinor that he still held and, in so doing, he might succeed where others had failed. Thus, he made the attempt with a wounded orc that had been left on the battlefield and, at one point, he had convinced himself that he had glimpsed some kind of effect, a measure of success, and once he had thought that he could not stop trying. It had taken the combined efforts of Maedhros and Caranthir to get him to acknowledge that he was merely hurting both the orc and himself, fruitlessly, and that he needed to give up.

He had released the orc, because after that prolonged, intimate, painful struggle there was nothing else he could do, a dubious decision he felt forced to make. It would probably die either on the way to Angband or on its arrival; if it did not, Maglor would bear the responsibility for any elves or Men it might kill in the future. He had never tried anything like that again. That had been a time of hope, despite the Doom, foolish in retrospect. Later on, he would never have dreamed a Son of Feanor could win such a combat, tainted as he was himself.

Thousands of years had passed since. And now he might have done it without even trying. Because the orc had consented, this time? Or had Maglor even had anything to do with it? Maybe the orc itself had slipped free, without his help?

He had not, he realized, seen an orc for a long while before this. That was not so strange, of course, because they avoided the Sea when they could. But it was the Fourth Age. Morgoth himself was long gone, despite the Marring that could not be reversed, and Sauron too had been defeated—how long ago, now? What Maglor had held incontrovertibly true might no longer be true, in this new Age. Maybe whatever the Dark Lords had done to the orcs’ minds was finally beginning to fade a little?

Or this orc had been an exceptional orc, with a stronger will than most, and had directed it to escape rather than obey those inherited commands. Maglor could not know. But he thought that orcs, like elves and dwarves, were getting fewer in this Age of Men in any case. How many might there be left now? There might be no answer to these questions…

Maglor shook his head and went on following the shoreline south where it led him.

---

Chapter End Notes

The two orcs in this story wanted to be called "it". Maybe they just felt their gender was none of my business or maybe they actually were non-binary...