A Rather Chaotic Revision of The Fellowship

~Seventeen~

They did, with effort, pull everyone through that snow. Caranthir, however, did have to carry Gimli, and would probably never forgive Olórin for all that; the wizard that had watched on the near brink of laughter, while Caranthir humiliated himself. Even the hobbits would have made a lighter load, and perhaps been a tad more polite. Gimli had loudly complained the whole time -- either to Caranthir, griping that the elf was letting his drag and therefore getting too much snow down his coat; or simply about the fact he had to be carried. But that incident was over, and they had other things to dwell on.

By evening, the sword Glamdring had stopped glowing. It seemed to happen practically in an instant; too fast. Sting detected nothing as well.

It isn't right, thought Caranthir, sulking in the back of the line. Even his own light feet seemed to crunch too loudly over the snow. This shouldn't be so abrupt.

Going downhill, the road seemed to spiral somewhat. At a time, the path narrowed to a small, rocky ledge they had to line up, one by one on top of thick ice, just to make it past. However, this turn would serve as quite difficult for a large band of orcs; if they did tread there, the result would no doubt be squabble, probably resulting in the occasional body hurled off the rock. Perhaps they've been using another road.

More sulking, shockingly, could not find him the answer. It was unlikely they'd found an underground system, with Moria (a system of tunnels far too organized to haphazardly lead to the surface like any natural caverns, which Caradhras, on the most part, lacked) so close and equally closed-off. Dwelling on it grew to be quickly infuriating.

Pippin had been poking around the snow for a while, despite Sam scolding him twice for stumbling in everyone's way; he kept nosing through the snow as if it was personal. And for some time, nobody thought any of it but the ranger. This in turn was largely ignored, until he held a gloved hand to stop.

A low, fearful murmur spread through the cluster of travelers aimed to "save the world." Caranthir shoved his way to front. "What is this? Why are you holding us up?"

Aragorn was stooped down, clearly noticing his words but too fixed on whatever it was he'd spotted. "Do you see this?" He stood, but left the thing in the snow where it had came from.

Caranthir knelt and tried to keep in the calmest manner possible, very much aware of his narrowing eyes and gritted teeth. His hands, shrouded in gloves, froze in the process of scraping away snow.

There, lay a simple shred of black fabric. Half-hidden by the blizzard, dirty and caked with frozen blood. Caranthir nodded slowly, then stared back up. "I see," he muttered, unimpressed. Is he truly stopping us for this? "Someone tore their robe."

"It's from an orc's uniform, " said Aragorn, doing no good to anyone's spirits. Narrowing his eyes, he let them stray along the tops of the snow, searching.

Holding his breath, Caranthir nudged away the certain object. Almost immediately he jerked back, hissing in disgust. Frozen in the snow lay a chunk of raw, nasty meat -- food, possibly. Vile creatures.

Caranthir furrowed his brow and stood, for the moment quite unwilling to continue any further probing. "We should search this place further, try to see for sure what happened," he said. His own hand, though covered efficiently, felt nothing short of contaminated. And he'd never thought he'd sink to the likes of certain brothers, going around poking dead things. (He technically should be a 'dead thing,' in fact.)

"The enemy was camping here," murmured Olórin. Next time, try telling us something we haven't yet guessed.

"Then they left," finished Gimli, now firmly gripping his axe.