Free The Two Towers by J. R. R. Tolkien

were demanding a halt. Uglúk was shouting. He
     felt himself flung to the ground, and he lay as he fell, till black dreams took him. But he did not long escape from pain;
     soon the iron grip of merciless hands was on him again. For a long time he was tossed and shaken, and then slowly the darkness
     gave way, and he came back to the waking world and found that it was morning. Orders were shouted and he was thrown roughly
     on the grass.
    There he lay for a while, fighting with despair. His head swam, but from the heat in his body he guessed that he had been
     given another draught. An Orc stooped over him, and flung him some bread and a strip of raw dried flesh. He ate the stale
     grey bread hungrily, but not the meat. He was famished but not yet so famished as to eat flesh flung to him by an Orc, the
     flesh of he dared not guess what creature.
    He sat up and looked about. Merry was not far away. They were by the banks of a swift narrow river. Ahead mountains loomed:
     a tall peak was catching the first rays of the sun. A dark smudge of forest lay on the lower slopes before them.
    There was much shouting and debating among the Orcs; a quarrel seemed on the point of breaking out again between the Northerners
     and the Isengarders. Some were pointing back away south, and some were pointing eastward.
    ‘Very well,’ said Uglúk. ‘Leave them to me then! No killing, as I’ve told you before; but if you want to throw away what we’ve
     come all the way to get, throw it away! I’ll look after it. Let the fighting Uruk-hai do the work, as usual. If you’re afraid
     of the Whiteskins, run! Run! There’s the forest,’ he shouted, pointing ahead. ‘Get to it! It’s your best hope. Off you go!
     And quick, before I knock a few more heads off, to put some sense into the others.’
    There was some cursing and scuffling, and then most of the Northerners broke away and dashed off, over a hundred of them,
     running wildly along the river towards the mountains. The hobbits were left with the Isengarders: a grim dark band, four score
     at least of large, swart, slant-eyed Orcs with great bows and short broad-bladed swords. A few of the larger and bolder Northerners
     remained with them.
    ‘Now we’ll deal with Grishnákh,’ said Uglúk; but some even of his own followers were looking uneasily southwards.
    ‘I know,’ growled Uglúk. ‘The cursed horse-boys have got wind of us. But that’s all your fault, Snaga. You and the other scouts
     ought to have your ears cut off. But we are the fighters. We’ll feast on horseflesh yet, or something better.’
    At that moment Pippin saw why some of the troop had been pointing eastward. From that direction there now came hoarse cries, and there was Grishnákh again, and at his back a
     couple of score of others like him: long-armed crook-legged Orcs. They had a red eye painted on their shields. Uglúk stepped
     forward to meet them.
    ‘So you’ve come back?’ he said. ‘Thought better of it, eh?’
    ‘I’ve returned to see that Orders are carried out and the prisoners safe,’ answered Grishnákh.
    ‘Indeed!’ said Uglúk. ‘Waste of effort. I’ll see that orders are carried out in my command. And what else did you come back
     for? You went in a hurry. Did you leave anything behind?’
    ‘I left a fool,’ snarled Grishnákh. ‘But there were some stout fellows with him that are too good to lose. I knew you’d lead
     them into a mess. I’ve come to help them.’
    ‘Splendid!’ laughed Uglúk. ‘But unless you’ve got some guts for fighting, you’ve taken the wrong way. Lugbúrz was your road.
     The Whiteskins are coming. What’s happened to your precious Nazgûl? Has he had another mount shot under him? Now, if you’d
     brought him along, that might have been useful – if these Nazgûl are all they make out.’
    ‘
Nazgûl
,
Nazgûl
,’ said Grishnákh, shivering and licking his lips, as if the word had a foul taste that he savoured painfully. ‘You speak
     of