The Mordor Files

Zaroth “the conflicted” had been an Orc general of some renown, until the "incident".

Zaroth had not always been conflicted, not until he came here of course. Here being the middle of nowhere, away from his lord and master Lord Sauron, to here, where he had been sent as punishment. A fate worse than death. Death was quick and could be painful he knew but it would be over in the end. Now, now it lasted and lasted, the pain was slow and enduring. The boredom was hideous; the repetition was eye twitchingly disdainful. And the of course the same bloody irritating faces of those incompetent useless low life filthy mongrel dog subordinates drove him insane. He needed to kick something every time he thought about their empty blank staring faces. Zaroth had been punished and sent with a small group of miscreants to an almost but most assuredly now forgotten outpost to the far North of Mordor just on the other side of its boundaries. Close to be part of it but far enough away that it was still a week’s march to the black gate to get back in. Here was where soldiers came to die. They did not die of any battle, not due to any great feat in war or any surmountable bravery. Here was where they came to die of boredom. Old orcs, blind orcs and any orc that was of no use to the services of Sauron and the legion. But still too fierce to eat and may be useful as cannon fodder one day. Zaroth had taken his orders with some disdain and anger. He had maimed the first three messengers that had been sent to his quarters in the Tower of Sauron. The first he threw out the tower without him finishing his message. the second he threw into a fire along with the written message, the third he had kicked down the stairs after setting him on fire and stabbing him with a letter opener. Eventually A Cave troll and ten elite veterans were then sent to deliver his orders direct from the Mouth of Sauron. The cave troll was later euthanized due to the injuries it sustained from being brutalised in trying to subdue Zaroth and his furious denial of being sent away. Three of the elite guard had died instantly and two were maimed, of the remaining five, three had gone off with psychological issues and were used as berserkers in the front line. The other two had taken their own lives as they felt they couldn’t face anything as horrifying ever again. Zaroth had been fuming for months. Saruman had just marched on Helms Deep to destroy the last of the Rohan survivors. The legion had been preparing to March on Minas Tirith and destroy the last of the humans…Now he was being sent away and miss all the fun. He kicked a goblin off the ramparts to try cheer himself up. It did not work. He tried to hold his head high as he was escorted to the caravan of exiles. On top of all his already upsetting news the people under his new command had left a lot to be desired as a fighting force. Not really a fighting force… a group of orcs…a group of has-beens… scum, filth waste of space… and Zaroth’s blood pressure shot through the roof again. At least his Captain of the guard Brag’ni was a fine sample of Mordor elite. He was big, tall, scarred and an Orc of a single mind, to destroy all life around him. A worthy captain to be under his command. The rest of the riffraff that had been sent with, well they just affected his blood pressure and patience and the fate of any goblins within his kicking reach. Brag’ni had complained incessantly to Zaroth since the orders had been handed to him. The riffraff and waste of space people that had been assigned were a blacksmith named Grimbarr, who was very skilled and proficient at making weapons and armour. The rest of his choices however earned him a ticket to the outpost. He had been somewhat…feminine and had a strange affinity to sweet, scented perfumes and silk like materials of bright colours. Although had been reprimanded on several occasions for his personal choices, some orcs had attempted to laugh and mock him. Their heads ended up being used as decorations on pikes outside his armoury and decorated even further with bright colours. Had it not been for the fact that Grimbarr was a great blacksmith but also a master of all he made, he may had been flogged and beheaded.

Grimbarr had been left to his own devices, but the other orc generals felt that he wasn’t good for morale and would prefer to have him removed. Zaroth wished he had been flogged. He would have chosen to do it himself. With a large barbed whip. No club. No axe. Yes axe...aim right above the neck just below the skull, if he was given the oppertunity that is. A chef whose culinary skills had made a single division become so severely sick that his food was to be used to inflict fear in the army and used as a method to scare the soldiers to perform better or face having to sit through one of his meals. The Chef Farnisq felt his food was affected by the quality of the raw materials he had to work with. If he had better supply, he could have better supported the soldiers. Instead of being able to support the main forces he was allocated to the extradited team to ensure the safety of their soldiers within the walls of Mordor and not fear the mass destruction that was served from his kitchen. The lead archer Darfnal was blind…a result of having some of Farnisq’s food thrown in his face during a brawl in the mess halls. Sixteen soldiers had died in that brawl and many more had been maimed and disfigured. The other soldiers in his new command were old, disfigured and useless for the main force. So, all had been sent here. Zaroth was not pleased. Not at all. The incident that started all his misery was a minor infraction at the most, he didn’t deserve this at all. So, he got a little drunk… the other generals did as well. It wasn’t his fault that that silly ass of a general tried to take his sword from his belt. He tried to take it back and accidentally, key word being accidental here, cut the other generals head off and may have stamped on his legs and cut off his offending hand. Ok kicking the head into a fire was maybe a little overboard but surely not enough to warrant this kind of punishment. This had been Zaroth’s thoughts anyway. In fact, it was the last straw. He had in fact killed many other generals in the past and it was becoming tiresome in trying to replace them all the time. And usually, he had killed them for minor things. Like not agreeing to his plan, touching his maps, moving the maps, touching the location pins on the maps, really anything to do with his maps was a major no-no. He had a system and he had felt that everyone else was just trying to mess with him.