Like Old Times

By Tyellas

Summary: After a run-in with some nasty cruel elves, the orcs Shagrat and Gorbag make a few decisions. Elladan and Elrohir cameo appearance.

Story Warnings and Notes: Extra Squicky! Violence, Graphic Sexual Activity, Slash? (You decide!) Rated NC-17. A bit of an experiment for me - usually I write about Elves, but I got in touch with my inner orc for this story.

Disclaimer: These characters and Middle-Earth are the copyright of the Tolkien estate and this fan fiction is not meant to infringe on that copyright in any way.

Thanks to beta readers Aayesha and Lyle.

The two survivors huddled deep in the thorn bushes and stared, angry and terrified, at the ruins of their home. It was now a scorched battleground, and the attackers were still swaggering about, merry at their cruel work. The attackers were killing the wounded with their blood-black blades, stabbing each corpse an extra time just to make sure it was dead. If the survivors were found, they knew it was their death. Worse, they had heard it whispered about the hearth that they might be eaten by such fell folk. Their killing done, the attackers peered around to see if anything caught their fancy for looting.

This final violation made one of the survivors find his courage again. "We can take 'em, Shagrat," the orc whispered. He glared at the pair of elves dismantling the orcs' den.

"Nar, Gorbag. More than your belly's worth," the other orc muttered. "And I'm half cooked, curse 'em." He stretched out a bowed, burned leg, then crouched low behind the brambles as one of the elf-warriors turned their way. To the orcs, the elf's eyes were stars of malice, his skin white as a wraith, his voice a snake's hiss. Most sinister, the attacking pair looked exactly alike, as if they had been bred from some bright enchantment to destroy orcs. The orcs breathed together in relief when the cruel beings failed to see them and turned away.

Shagrat and Gorbag stayed huddled as the two attackers conferred by the camp's central hearth, cleaning their swords on rags pulled off corpses. Then one of them uttered a piercing whistle. Two horses, ghostly grey to match the elves' paleness, stamped out of the nearby gorse. The elves mounted and rode away through the half-burned brush around the camp. The survivors, scarce believing their luck, waited until the last hoof-fall was silent before they moved.

"They gone?" Gorbag murmured.

Shagrat tilted his head, then leaned listening against the ground for a moment. "Think so. Not a horsefart. Let's leg it." They staggered up from their hiding place and walked down to the wreck of their camp, to stand grotesque amidst the noonday desolation.

The two orcs were of the same breed, both with strong arms hanging long to their knees and wide, muscle-heavy torsos. If they had lived in the mountain caves, their skin would have been dead grey. However, their life as "toll-takers" of the mountain pass had tanned them and narrowed their eyes to slits against the cruel sun. Gorbag was shorter, but strong as an oak stump, with thick lips dented by his yellow fangs. Shagrat stood up straighter than most orcs, and he was thought to have a well-shaped head, a crested skull under sparse hair, a heavy, jutting jaw. They did not know how closely related they were, since they did not know who their fathers had been. Not that it mattered, now; their entire clan was dead, except for them.

Gorbag peered up into a tree with a platform where sides and gobbets of meat were stored. "Didn't loot the meat-cache. They just came to kill." He stamped in anger at the Elves' senseless cruelty.

"Pig guts and elf dung! Fucking rebels," Shagrat snarled. "What did we expect? They took out Ugnak's camp two weeks ago. Same way, too. Set a fire round the camp, then arrows, then they come in for the kill. Told 'em we should have moved on." With his good leg, he kicked a particular corpse, one that had been the camp's leader, and Gorbag guffawed.

Then Gorbag started to drag bodies towards the camp's big fire-pit. He picked the good gear off the corpses, just as the dead orcs had gleaned it from their own victims. Shagrat went through the orcs' lean-tos, built up against a cracked cliff of red sandstone, and dragged out more dead bodies. By the time they were done, they had found all the clan's members and emptied their pockets. Even the orc-whelps had been slaughtered by the elves.

"Any of the brats missing?" Gorbag asked, and Shagrat shook his head.

"Stupid little buggers," Shagrat grumbled. "If they didn't have the brains to run away from the golug, they deserved it."

"Should we burn 'em?" Gorbag asked. They had been roughly equal, warriors in good standing (and smart enough to be craven at times), but authority was simple in their clan. Shagrat was bigger than Gorbag, and stood strong despite his injury, so Gorbag deferred to him.

"After dark, so's the smoke don't bring the golug," said Shagrat. It was an orcish tradition to burn the elf-slain if they could, so that, they said, the Elves did not come back and eat their dead bodies. Gorbag grunted in agreement. Then, they went through the pile of salvaged gear, warily choosing, each expecting the other to start a fight over a choice item. Neither did.

When they were done, Gorbag said, "I'm hungry. I'm getting some meat." He went and clambered up the tree to the cache, and brought back half a cold, roasted mountain-goat, only a little fly-blown.

"Hand some over," said Shagrat. They ripped the side of meat in half, then went back to the brambles to eat and wait. Eating as much as they wanted, without having the meat doled out or quarrelled over, was strange. Again, each of them waited for the other to snarl out, or snatch the other's portion.

Had there only been one orc, he would have stripped his clansman's cold body with a practiced hand. Had there been three, they would have argued without cease. Two was enough to aid survival, and few enough that there could be a détente, for a time.

The sun was still up by the time they had cracked the bones for their marrow. The light tired them more than their labours had, and they moved to one of the lean-tos to pass the time before darkness. Shagrat rubbed grease into his burned leg, hissing at the pain. Wanting distraction, he said, "Tell a tale, Gorbag. Something about old times."

Gorbag rumbled in his throat and began to recite. "The old ones said it used to be better. More like it should be. There was the Necromancer keeping the great Wood safe and dark, and goblin-clans all along the Mountains. Elves were fading away, fewer every year. We fought the Dwarves and won the dark of Moria for our own. We kept it, too. Plague came to the humans and our folk picked 'em off. We raped their fat women and ate their fat men. The night belonged to us!" Shagrat growled for the orcish bard to continue. "And then the war. And then the war." Gorbag shook his head. "Ever since the war by the lake, when the Great Worm died, and the mountain clans were slaughtered, it's been getting too bright in these parts. Elves and Dwarves moving around more."

"Mmmh. And I hate the wood-men. Didn't used to hunt us, but they do now," Shagrat added.

"Yes, the world's a foul place. Full of rebels who hate us. The heroes are dead, Azog and Bolg." Gorbag told another story. They heard the ravens fly down to pick at the bodies outside, but did not trouble themselves - the corpses would be lucky enough to get burned.

At dusk, they stood up, refreshed by the chill air and darkness. They tore down most of the crude lean-tos and stacked the wood and rancid hides in the fire-pit, ready to kindle a funeral bonfire. This task strained and broke their uneasy peace. They cursed the splinters, and the stinking leather, and the hateful golug, and each other, getting angrier as they worked.

Soon the bonfire was roaring, and they threw the bodies on, a few at a time. It took the two of them together to heave their leader's body onto the flames. They turned their anger against the corpse, spitting insults, laughing coarsely. As a final insult, Shagrat pulled his cock out of his loincloth and aimed a jet of piss at the flames, sending up acrid, foul steam.

"Garn! Some joint you've got there," Gorbag jeered. There was more than one way to be the biggest orc, and his leer took on a defiant tilt. "Now this, I'd call a dick." He took his own penis out and pissed on the funeral pyre in turn, proud of the heavy, dark thickness of it.

Shagrat looked down at Gorbag's cock, growling again. "Screw you, Gorbag. I've seen your dick standing - you don't gain an inch by it, same up or down. I'm your match and more." He started to drag on his flaccid cock-meat, glaring at Gorbag's crotch all the while. Anger and arousal were always paired for orcs; raping, mating, dominating all blurred in the fury that fuelled an orc's life. Gorbag growled on the same bestial note and began to yank at his meat as well.

"Can't get it up?" laughed Shagrat. "Me, I'll have to use two hands in a minute." Shagrat's flaccid cock had been a long greyish tube. Engorged, it was thick and maroon, an angry pylon of flesh, even the dangling nut-sack reddened and swollen.

The taunting goaded Gorbag, and he settled both hands on his hips, leering further. "Nar, he's up. And a match for you. I'm wider." Gorbag's erection was also thick, fleshier, rubbery, dark bistre-brown. He showed off by making his cock twitch visibly.

Shagrat stepped close enough that their cocks were a foot apart, stabbing towards each other. Their growling was now a constant drilling note, the sound of rut. "See you match this, snaga. My balls are always on the boil - I'll spew in half a minute, then get hard again. That's a man for you," Shagrat rasped, and began to drag at his cock again, staring balefully at Gorbag. Gorbag's rut-growl deepened as he swelled to the challenge. Nearly chest to chest, close enough to breath each other's musky, meaty reek, they jerked off together.

"I'll beat you to it," Shagrat breathed.

"Not a chance, snaga," said Gorbag, insulting him in turn. Then each threw back his head and howled, their cocks spewing at the same time, gobbets of come spattering each other. The fire seethed for a moment as a corpse crackled, then burned stable again.

After coming, they both unsheathed their crude scimitars and ran their semen along the metal, then sheathed the weapons again. The grease on the blades would protect them against the slime. With luck, the rancid spew would poison the next Elves or Men they stabbed.

They both started at a clear hissing sound that evoked elf-voices, but it was only bodies in the fire, their fat starting to catch and boil. Then they turned to each other again, both still hard. "Fuck me raw if you aren't my match," said Shagrat, and then he began to roar with laughter. "Guess that's why we're both alive after the golug. We were the only two with the balls for it!" Gorbag howled along with him, and then they crammed their cocks back amongst the rags they wore. Still eyeing each other, they began to throw the last corpses on the fire, working together again.

"What next for you?" Gorbag asked. "Join another clan? Maybe inside Moria?"

"Nar. Not me. Too hungry in there. I hear they eat each other. Some fellows passing through said that it's better down South, across the Big River," Shagrat said. "You have to go through elf country, but it's worth it, they said. Like old times. Better, even. No golug. Men, bad Men, but they're everywhere. Just means good booty and man-flesh to eat. Said they were going to a land with a smoking mountain that blocks out the sun. A land called Mordor."

They paused and thought about this. The dark name was pleasantly compelling. "Sounds too good to be true," said Gorbag. With a finger-claw, he picked wax out of his ears thoughtfully. "Still. I'm fed up with the shit around here. Don't want to fight my way into a new clan just to have the golug make me meat for burning."

"I say I'll risk it," Shagrat declared. He glanced sidelong at the other orc, eyes narrowed with thought. Gorbag was canny enough to try and shame him down. It showed Gorbag had balls. And better to have someone like that beside you, instead of stalking you. He looked Gorbag straight in the eye, and took another risk. "Walk along with me. You watch my back, I watch yours. Done?"

Gorbag's lips lifted in a snarling smile. "Done." Shagrat was a tough bastard, limping only a little on his burned leg. Not like all the dead whiners. Lied less than most orcs, too. He'd been right about their cocks, though Gorbag would rather slit his own throat than admit it. Gorbag could go along, as long as there was some benefit.

They smacked their hands together, sticky with semen and blade-grease, and shook on it, both feeling very noble. Together, the pair looked to the South, feeling a dull pull from that direction. They squatted by the fire for a time, planning how to travel without being snared by cruel elves or eaten by the hungry hordes of Moria. As they spoke, they glanced South again and again, dimly lured by their master's presence.

Story Notes

Eaten by such fell folk= The obscure book Morgoth's Ring has a Tolkien essay about Orcs. It says that Orcs were "convinced beyond refutation that the Elves were crueller than themselves, taking captives only for "amusement" or to eat at need (as Orcs did themselves.)"
Golug = Black Speech word for High Elves, also used for elves in general. Narn i Hin Hurin, Unfinished Tales.
We fought the Dwarves and won... The heroes are dead, Azog and Bolg = The orcs' take on the war of the Orcs and Dwarves, Tale of Years appendix, Return of the King.
Snaga = Black Speech word for slave, references throughout LOTR, notable in the chapter Mount Doom in Return of the King.

Please do not reproduce or repost this story without permission from the author. First posted Sept. 1, 2002.

Feedback or comments on this story are welcome - email Tyellas here.