But first, a Warning to Readers, especially the Weak-Willed - HERE BE (SOME) SPOILERS!

The following events are set in the background - the extreme background - of the events forming Chapters V to X of Book Five in the final book of a certain massively popular fantasy trilogy. While every effort has been made to obscure the plot details, a certain amount of spoilage has been unavoidable in two or three areas. Anyone who has not read the book in question, and intends to, is gently advised not to read this. Or you could wait for some kind of screen interpretation, possibly coming out in the near future.

So, as the saying goes, if you don't want to know the score, look away now.

'Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, I'll cut you open and show you your own guts.'.

- Traditional orcish saying.

The road ran through the craggy foothills of the mountains, over gorges and defiles, through fields of rock and slag, under the glowering sky of the Black Land. Although dusk had fallen and the stars were coming out above the ceiling of poisonous smoke and choking ash, there was heavy traffic on the road; it was the main artery from the gates of the dark kingdom to its heart, the Dark Tower. Companies of orcs and Easterlings marching to war were whipped on by officers and lieutenants, eager to get to their billets, fearful of the punishment tardiness would bring. So in the hazy half-light there was jostling and swearing, as confused shouted orders became mixed up. It was chaos. A brigade of the Eastern allies attempted to overtake a marching company of uruk-hai, but was forced off the road. They charged back screaming battle cries, weapons were drawn and before order could be restored the road was littered with corpses, which the next company along all tripped over, and while they reassembled the next troop walked into them and got mixed... and so it went on.

Slowly trundling in the opposite direction to the marching thousands was a huge slave wagon, drawn on its bumpy way by teams of straining captives. When they collapsed in exhaustion, weeping and wailing, their bodies were run over by the mammoth wheels and a new slave took their place. It had been on the road since early morning, fighting to make headway through the tide of soldiers, leaving a trail of crushed bodies behind it.

Not an ideal way to travel, mused Lurkh, but it certainly beat walking claws down. A little noisy, a little uncomfortable, but it gave you time to enjoy the view.

He glanced to the side of the road. A sheer rock wall glared back.
Well, it was quick then. Slaves were an excellent fuel to run on, and best of all they were a renewable resource. And biodegradable, too. He was sitting dangling his legs on the tailboard of the wagon: most of it was taken up with the slave's cages. Guard duty on one of these rigs was a cushy, coveted position, and he had had to forge an officer's seal to get it. And do that other thing, too.

'Aboooouuut face! On the double!' he bellowed into the dusk.

There was some confused shouting and noises of clanking armour and tramping feet, as the nearest troop turned around and ran into the next-to-nearest¹. He snickered. The wagon rumbled past another milestone, and slowed as it met a slope.

'The road goes on and bloody on, eh?' he spoke through the bars into the darkness of the nearest cage, bolted to the deck. 'But don't fret, we're nearly there.'

There was no reply.

'Oh come on, don't be a sissy. I've said I'm sorry. Repeatedly.'

Silence again.

Fine. If you want to act like a grumpy hatchling, I won't tell you the rest of the Plan...'

Silence.

I think you're taking this rather personally...

Ghurz thrust his head up against the bars, his normally friendly face twisted with anger and pain.

'You stabbed me in the chest...' he snarled.

'Just a flesh wound, I barely nicked you, had to make it look convincing...' Lurkh interrupted quickly.

'you had me arrested for treasonous utterings...'

'Essential for the Plan to work, I assure you, if you'll just listen...'

... and now you're having me hauled off to Lugbúrz to be horribly tortured and executed, and you want me to listen to you?' He spat.

Lurkh held up his hands in a conciliatory gesture.

'I admit I've been a little mysterious about the Plan...

You stabbed me in the chest...'

'Shut up. Look, you're not going to be tortured. I just needed a way to get another orc and myself into the Tower, and they've locked it down to everybody except those for disciplining, and I have to escort you in to get where I need to be. You understand?' He sighed. 'Once again, I'm sorry I had to knife you. Now will you shut up about it? Please?'

Despite himself, Ghurz was calmed by this speech which was, for an orc, the height of gracious eloquence. Besides, orcs can shake off knife wounds like a headache. It comes from being born into large, competitive families.

'So,' he grumped. 'What do you want that's in Lugbúrz? It seems like the wrong direction to be going if we're gonna defect.'

Lurkh scratched his chin thoughtfully. 'It's something I need to look at before we go to the next stage. A book. I hope I can remember where it is.'

A book? You can read? Yikes!'

Up at the front of the wagon, the ostler rang a bell, and shouted a greeting to someone at the side of the road. A harsh call went up on a horn, and there was a great rending and rattling of chains. Their destination had crept up on them unnoticed.

Ghurz twisted around in his cage and craned his neck. A gigantic dark presence blotted out the sky and loomed over the nightmare landscape, perversely huge beyond the laws of nature, stretching up higher and higher till it violated the clouds, lit by thousands of torches and beacons and bonfires. He saw towers and battlements looming over pits darker than the surrounding night, great shadowy courtyards and dungeons, eyeless prisons sheer as cliffs and yawning gates of steel and chain and rivet and scorched wood.

Then one of the gates swallowed the slave wagon, and he was in darkness. A great moan went up from the slaves and prisoners in their cages. Without even being told, they had abandoned all hope.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

'Name?' shrieked the overseer above the din in the yard. He was an especially depraved combination; an orc and a petty bureaucrat in one stinking, clipboard-wielding body.

'Ghurz, Private. Done for treason. Here it is...' Lurkh fished out the arrest seal from his knapsack and handed it over. The overseer inspected it closely, and sniffed it².

'Alright, seems to be legit. Take him down the passage on the left – you see it? Then follow the sounds of screaming.' He grinned horribly at Ghurz, who was cowering in his bonds. 'Have a nice day. In so far as that's possible. Heh.'

'Thankee. Alright, come on, you scab-sucking reptile, keep up! Don't like that, eh? Take some o' that!'

Lurkh threaded his way through the unloaded cages and wailing prisoners, who were now being corralled into work gangs by the slave-drivers. The yard was enclosed by blank stone walls, which seemed to climb forever. He yanked on the leash to make Ghurz keep up.

'Urggh! You're enjoying yourself, aren't you? You are, you vicious piece of...'

'Simply keeping up the pretence, that's all.' Lurkh grinned, and smacked his captive upside the head. He was enjoying this revenge for the countless sleepless days he had spent on duty with the talkative young orc.

'Now shift it, traitor!' he bellowed. 'And keep that croak-hole shut! Heya! Heya!'

'We didn't agree to this...' wheezed Ghurz, staggering along behind his escort.

Down the passage on the left, into a dank tunnel lit by guttering torches. From up ahead, there was a sound of deep drums and muffled cries. Firelight cast flickering shadows on the walls. Lurkh drew Ghurz into the shadows and cut the straps binding his wrists.

'We've got to move quickly. The torture pits³ are expecting you, and when they find they're one short they'll start asking around. We should be out of here before that happens – by dawn, say. And if we're separated, we meet back here. You can...'

Lurkh stopped suddenly, cocking an ear, then dragged the larger orc into the deepest shadows. Now the sound of marching feet grew out of the darkness. With a hissed order to keep silent, he flattened his back against a buttress and peered around.

Two heavily armoured soldiers emerged into the torchlight, a squealing, kicking little creature held between them. Lurkh's heart, or whatever harried little pump kept his jet blood gurgling in his chest, nearly froze as one of them stopped, followed by the other, barely three meters away. The first guard lifted their prisoner, took him by the feet and knocked his head delicately against the ground.

'Shut it,' he suggested in a helpful growl.

The other guard gave a snort of mirth at his partner's wit, then they executed a smart ninety degree turn and tramped off down another corridor.

Lurkh emerged from the shadows, and waved Ghurz out. He rooted in his knapsack for a moment. 'Take this.'

Ghurz took the rag of cloth, puzzled.

'If anyone asks, we're cleaners. Alright?'

'Does the Dark Tower have cleaners?'

Lurkh grinned quickly, nervously.

'Let's hope so.'

Ghurz wrung his hands together.

'Is all of your plan that well thought out? 'Cause if it is, we'll be a...'

'The broad details are sound, alright? Don't nit-pick. And follow me.'

He hurried into the shadows, into a connecting passage Ghurz hadn't seen.

'... and it'd be terrible if we were caught and horribly killed because of a nit-pick. What is one of those, anyway?'

'It means you have fleas.'

'Yes?'

'Look, it's just an expression I read somewhere, will you come on...'

A few minutes jogging brought them to a stairwell set into a small alcove. Ghurz groaned. His sunny temperament was really taking a beating today.

'More bloody stairs. How far are we going?'

'All the way to the top.' Lurkh leaned heavily on the wall and tried to remember how to breathe.

'That must be miles!'

'No, no. A mile, mile and a half tops. I promise.'

If this comforted Ghurz, he hid it well.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

'And how come you know so much about this place?' gasped Ghurz, as they rounded the seventh flight. The steps were steep and narrow, and the roof was low. In the intestines of the tower, the air was thick and musty.

'I had a posting here once...' wheezed Lurkh. 'I took these steps every day... oh b****r, let's take a break.'

The pair slumped against the wall of the landing, fighting to draw breath. Lurkh was about to suggest they start again, when around the corner there lumbered a glistening, tattooed uruk-hai soldier, humming to himself and idly swinging his cleaver. He strolled past the alcove, then did a double take, which is quite a thing to see in a creature weighing half a ton.

'Wot in the bloody eye⁴ are you little snotrags doin'? Eh? You ain't supposed ta be here!' he boomed at them, accompanied by a gentle shower of spittle. He towered over the two smaller orcs, blocking out the torchlight.

'My good orc,' started Lurkh weakly, 'We're the cleaners. So just run along, alright?'

'Cleaners?' the uruk's tattooed brow furrowed, his tiny brain working overtime. 'Does the Dark Tower have cleaners?'

'Oh, there's a typical attitude. Bloody typical. So you can slaughter all the heroes you want, no problem, but you never think about who has to clean up the mess, do you? Without us, sonny, you'd be in guts up to your elbows. But never a word of thanks, oh no... and dried blood is hell to shift, am I right?'

'S'right,' muttered Ghurz.

'Alright den, move along.' The puzzled uruk turned his back to leave.

'Isn't there something else you'd like to say?' Lurkh piped up.

'Huh?'

'Come on...'

'Oh right. Uhhmm. Tank you.'

'You're welcome. Now run along yourself.'

Feeling smaller in some way he couldn't quite grasp, the uruk lumbered off down the corridor.

'You see that? That is what you can do with brains.' Lurkh tapped his head to demonstrate.

Ghurz looked sideways at him. 'You think you're so much better than the rest of us, don't you?'

'Of course I don't think that!'

'Well, good...'

I know it. Most of the rabble are too terminally dense to have an independent thought, let alone save themselves.' He gave a short, odd laugh. 'There are millions of us – but we all fight, die and grovel on behalf of the Great Cyclops, old Pink-Eye. Why's that?'

'He gave us the Homeland, didn't he?' ventured Ghurz, half-remembering some of the lectures he'd had as a recruit. The country where an orc can stand crooked...'

'It was always ours!' spat Lurkh. 'But now we're just his little skivvies. It ain't right. Why shouldn't we have our own slice of the pie? Our own pie, even...'

Ghurz blinked. 'You're... hungry?'

The older orc took a deep breath, and let it out with a crooked smile.

'No. Not as such. Got your breath back? Then onwards and upwards, you scum!'

A few flights of stairs later, they came to a great stone arch, rudely carved, leading into shadows. The arch was decorated with motifs of an eye, with interspersed figures hung up, cut apart and in various other unenviable positions. Across the top of the archway, letters were carved deep into the stone, in a guttural and unpleasant language. They seemed to glow with an unhealthy light.

'What does it say?' whispered Ghurz hoarsely.

'Never mind that. It's just words.' Lurkh paused, his foot on the threshold. 'Horrific, gut-wrenchingly terrifyingly evil words, I admit. But you really don't want to know. Come on.'

He stepped under the arch and into the outer darkness. With grave reservations, and a strong sense of deja vú, Ghurz followed.

In the next chapter our heroes penetrate the most private domain of the Dark Lord, there are revelations concerning the past and motives of the educated orc, Ghurz has an unsettling interview with his employer, we discover the Dark Lord's bedtime reading, there is a bloody murder and we finally answer the eternal question: does the Dark Tower have cleaners?

Featuring the voice of James Earl Jones as old Pink-Eye (the Enemy).

The Final Appendix
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