Chapter 16: Rescuing the Captives

Most of the tunnels in the Misty Mountains are cold, dark, and damp; even the hardy Dwarves are unwilling to live in such an environment for long. However, these tunnels are favored by the Orcish, who dislike the daylight and use them to traverse the Misty Mountains, avoiding exposure to the sun.

Today, a party of four or five hundred Orcish is traveling through the tunnels, intending to head to Orc Town to exhibit their newly captured prisoners and, incidentally, see if they can conduct some slave trading. After the trade, they plan to pass through Orc Town toward Moria. Leading this group is none other than Bolg, the son of Azog.

As Azog's most capable son, Bolg has been in a very good mood lately. They had just found another village of Skin-changers and, after much effort, captured several of them, preparing to take them to Orc Town to exhibit before the fat lord there. It is said that this fat man recently suffered a crushing defeat at the hands of the Humans, with only a few hundred Orcish escaping out of a force of over two thousand. This incident spread from Orc Town even to Gundabad, becoming a joke passed from mouth to mouth among the Orcish; in this part of the Wilderland, such a thing had not happened for a long time.

But starting a few days ago, Bolg's good mood vanished; a Skin-changer had actually taken advantage of a moment of his negligence and escaped.

Although Bolg led the Wolf Riders to inflict heavy injuries on him during the pursuit, and eventually watched him fall into the river beneath the cliff, he had not personally killed the Skin-changer who dared to escape, so Bolg's mood had not been very pleasant these past few days.

Most Orcish are both ignorant and stupid; their personalities are cruel and irritable when encountering the weak, yet cowardly when facing strong enemies. But there are always exceptions—for instance, Bolg, or rather, this bloodline of Azog is different. Their intelligence and cunning are no less than that of ordinary Humans, and they are naturally tall and fierce, possessing pale skin unlike common Orcish. The reason for this is untraceable, or perhaps the chronicler simply did not wish to mention the filthy and terrifying process.

Regarding the loss of the prisoners this time, Bolg could guess that with his stupid subordinates, once they reached Orc Town, the news would spread very quickly—perhaps even faster than the joke about the fat man's defeat. Originally, he had wanted to use this incident to mock the big Orc who was nominally a clan leader like his father, but now that Bolg had his own embarrassing affair, both sides were evenly matched, and mocking him was no longer a viable option.

Just as Bolg was thinking of these vexing matters again and feeling disgruntled, the Warg beneath him stopped and raised its head, sniffing carefully back and forth. It stuck out its crimson tongue to lick its lips and spoke in a voice that was extremely strange and unpleasant, but Bolg understood it.

"Bolg, there is the scent of fresh Humans here. This scent is not from our prisoners; it comes from the dried-up riverbed ahead."

These Wargs of the Misty Mountains are usually willing to operate alongside the Orcish. Legend has it that they were bred by Morgoth in the First Age; after Morgoth was captured, they gathered again under the command of Morgoth's lackey, the Dark Lord Sauron.

They differ from ordinary wolves in that they can communicate with language, not just howling. Some speculate based on this that they harbor evil spirits within them, and what is most praiseworthy is their sense of smell, which is extremely keen. Bolg's Warg companion had accurately captured the scent of fresh Humans from the chaotic atmosphere of the tunnel.

"Ha~"

Hearing this news, a cruel smile appeared on Bolg's extremely ugly face, and a mocking laugh escaped his lips.

He had traveled this road countless times and never imagined that any Humans would be bold enough to ambush him in the tunnels. How dare they? This was already very close to Orc Town; were they not afraid of being overwhelmed by countless Orcish?

Bolg was almost laughed into anger by these Humans who did not know the meaning of death; he felt he had been slighted by these Humans.

Even so, Bolg did not make a reckless decision, but casually assigned a few Orcish to scout the path ahead; he wanted to see what the Humans on the other side were planning.

The Orcish who received the order also felt it was strange. They had traveled this road before, so why scout today for no reason? However, they did not think much of it and walked swaggeringly into the riverbed with their little bellies protruding. But in the middle of the riverbed, they also sensed something was wrong, twitching their noses frequently, and slowly appeared before Allen.

When Allen saw these scouting scum, he knew his plan had been exposed. Bolg must have discovered something abnormal through some means; otherwise, it would have been impossible to send these Orcish out to scout.

Encountering this sudden situation, Allen decided he could not just wait. Even if he let these few Orcish go, Bolg would likely send more to investigate. If it were only the dozen or so people discovered, it would be one thing, but what if the people hidden on the platform were found? In any case, he could not let Bolg slip away from under his nose with the prisoners.

Thinking of this, Allen jumped out directly from his hiding place, brandishing the Greatsword in his hand as he charged into the middle of the Orcish. He finished off the scum in a few moves, then casually tore a piece of cloth from a corpse to wipe the Greatsword before sheathing it.

Afterward, Allen lit a torch he had prepared earlier, picked up an Orcish head with his other hand, and signaled for Beorn to follow him.

Allen decided to go and meet Bolg. He strode out of the riverbed and, by the light of the torch in his hand, barely managed to see Bolg, who had pale skin and was riding on a Warg. Allen took a deep breath and shouted loudly: "Bolg, I know you're there, you cross-bred mongrel, you piece of trash who can't even watch over prisoners."

As he spoke, he threw the Orcish head in his hand forcefully toward Bolg, pointed at Beorn beside him, and continued to shout: "See this? I saved him. Let me tell you, you and your father are both useless. Your father had his hand chopped off by the fallen Thorin Oakenshield and became a cripple, and you, you can't even watch over a battered prisoner."

Allen walked forward a few more steps, saw Bolg, who was already gnashing his teeth in anger, and continued to provoke: "What? Not convinced? Why are you looking at me with that ugly face? If you're not convinced, come over and kill me."

The Orcish species was originally created by the Great Dark Lord Morgoth by twisting the children of Eru Iluvatar with dark power, with the purpose of destroying all beautiful things in this world. Under normal circumstances, once Orcish and Humans, or Elves, meet, a life-and-death struggle is inevitable.

Even if Bolg was a rare Orcish with a brain, he could not endure such provocation, let alone being pointed at and cursed by a Human in front of so many Orcish. He was young, vigorous, and daring; in the movie, he led a small Orcish squad and dared to directly assault the back door of the Forest Elves to intercept and kill Thorin Oakenshield, who had just escaped from the Elven dungeon.

Bolg knew that if he backed down now, how would these stupid, low-level Orcish behind him spread the word about him? By then, his reputation for cowardice might spread from Gundabad all the way to Moria, to the ears of his father, Azog. In any case, Bolg could not let such a thing happen.

"Kill them for me."

Bolg raised the weapon in his hand with a roar, driving the Warg beneath him to charge toward the riverbed. The Orcish behind him, upon receiving the order, followed Bolg, waving their Curved Blades, wooden clubs, and other weapons as they charged at Allen in the riverbed.

Seeing that his provocation had worked, Allen hurriedly pulled the somewhat dazed Beorn beside him and retreated, merging with his own people who had already reached the middle of the riverbed.

However, what no one noticed was that just as Bolg led the Orcish to charge near the riverbed and Allen had just merged with his own people, a stealthy figure slowly slipped out from behind a giant rock ten meters away from the riverbed.

This person was Cress. Cress had started doing dirty work for her lord when she was very young. Compared to ordinary people, her vision in the dark was better. She had hidden behind the rock early on, thinking that when the ambush started, she would give the enemies who wanted to escape a surprise with her heavy javelins. She waited and waited, finally waiting for the enemy, but the enemy stood dozens of meters away and didn't come over, instead sending a few pieces of scum to scout. She hurriedly hid, and then saw her boss come over to berate the opponent. She had followed Allen for so long and had never seen Allen berate an opponent like a shrew, so she was stunned for a moment.

In fact, the scent the Wargs first smelled was Cress's; otherwise, Bolg's team should have moved forward another few dozen meters before discovering the Woodland Residents hidden on the cliff. This time, Cress's unauthorized action, under Allen's coordination, accidentally had a good result.

And when those Wargs charged into the riverbed entrance, their noses were full of the scent of various Humans, and Allen and his subordinates had already walked out from their hiding places and engaged the Orcish. All their attention was focused on Allen's side, so the main force of the Orcish did not discover her figure.

By the time Cress came to her senses, Bolg had already led the main force past her position. Cress quietly crept toward the enemy's previous location and gradually saw the situation on the other side. There were still a dozen or so Orcish left, guarding several large iron cages placed on the ground. Cress also knew that Allen's purpose for coming this time was to save people, and she guessed that the people to be saved should be in those iron cages. She quietly crept along the hidden spots on the road to the vicinity of the prisoners.

At this time, there were indeed thirteen or fourteen Orcish who had not followed Bolg out. Their previous task was to guard these cages. As a result, while sleeping, one fellow made too much noise, rolled over to the side of Beorn's cage, and was directly grabbed and strangled by Beorn, who still had a little strength left. Then he searched the body for the key and escaped. For this, Bolg led a large number of Wolf Riders in pursuit, and after failing to kill him, he not only whipped them severely but also killed several of them directly, and the fellows who were guarding the prisoners with them were fed to the wolves. They originally had more than twenty people guarding the cages.

They also learned from their mistakes. Even though Bolg led most of the Orcish to charge up, they stayed behind because their not-so-bright brains could at least figure out that if something happened to the prisoners, Bolg would not let them go even if he won. So the dozen or so of them still guarded the cages, watching the riverbed over there, unmoved even though there was already a large amount of firelight and the noise of large-scale fighting.

Just as they were watching the battle on the riverbed, muttering something, several javelins suddenly appeared and directly impaled the four Orcish sitting on one side of the cages. The power attached to the javelins even carried their still-living bodies into the cages, making a clanging sound.

The other Orcish reacted after hearing the commotion and all ran toward the direction where the javelins appeared. Immediately after, several Flying Daggers flew out from the darkness, pinning down four more Orcish charging on the road. The remaining Orcish were frightened by this situation; they looked at each other and dared not move forward. After hesitating for a while, they actually slowly retreated. At this time, Cress, who had drawn her elite Curved Blade, had already circled behind them at some unknown time. With two "puff, puff" sounds, she slashed to death the two enemies closest to her, then strode to catch up with the three fleeing Orcish, solving the remaining scum one by one.

Having killed all the enemies, Cress let out a heavy breath and began to loot the enemy corpses. Before long, she pulled out a large bunch of keys, weighed them, and walked toward the cages where the prisoners were held.

This Orcish unit was escorting a total of five large iron cages. The first three cages held Skin-changers like Beorn, three adults and two children—the three adults were one man and two women, and the two children were one boy and one girl. At this moment, they were a bit excited seeing Cress walk over, and the iron chains binding them made a clattering sound. Cress opened the cages while whispering: "Beorn and I came together to save you. Quiet, stay quiet." Upon hearing the name Beorn, they all quieted down and obediently let Cress unlock their shackles.

As for the two cages in the back, one cage held three Dwarves, and one cage actually held two Elves. Their condition was truly much worse than that of the Skin-changers. The Dwarves were a bit better; seeing someone coming to save them, they could still struggle a little, making hoarse sounds, while the Elves didn't even have the strength to call for help. Cress could only judge that they were still alive by their slightly heaving chests.

Cress was troubled looking at the five people before her; she couldn't drag five people away by herself. At this time, the five Skin-changers walked over, picked up the prisoners in the cages, and signaled for Cress to lead the way; it was time for them to run. Cress quietly took them back to the giant rock where she had hidden, settled everyone down, and at the same time, Cress took out the food and water she had on her for them to eat.

At this moment, the battle in the riverbed had reached a white-hot stage.