The Black Heart

Chapter One: Isengard's Welcome

AN: The characters in this story are mentioned in my longer tale, Splint. However, I don't think you need to read that story to keep up with this one. Also, this is not Splint, in that, this is not a long story, and will be done in a few chapters.

Warning: This story contains mature themes, including sex and violence as well as swearing. It also contains orcs, and lots of them, which would explain all of the previously mentioned. You're warned!

Disclaimer: Middle Earth, Saruman belongs to J. R. R. Tolkien, but I do have a good time playing with them. Other characters, including the incidentals of this story, belong to me. No monetary nothing is gained from this endeavor, and if Tolkien saw what I was doing to his world, he might (i.e. he definitely would) hate me for it...

The tower of Isengard was a great, white spire rising out of the lush forest of Fangorn like a shining pike reaching to the heavens. A wall encircled the tower, separating the primly manicured grounds from the dark wood that surrounded it. Approaching this intimidating monolith from the wide road through the forest was a motley group of fifty hard souls. They were Dunland men, lured by great promises of gold for what seemed like a fairly easy task, if one had the stomach to face it. They were all grim mouthed and hard eyed beneath their shaggy beards and furs, a faint whiff of liquor on them to steel the nerves. All except one, a black haired man with a crooked nose and a wild glint in his sharp blue eyes. He picked up the rear, whistling to himself as he rested his head back on his laced fingers, enjoying the fine, clean wind on his face.

They had, all of them, discussed on their journey here why they had chosen to embark on this trek, as if their presence demanded an explanation. Almost all had come for the money, but for various reasons. Most were stout fellows intent on helping their tribe through a difficult winter, some were chiefs with the same matter on their mind. A good number were outlaws or green eyed lads, interested in money alone and an easy life after this odd affair, for if the Wizard made true on what he was offering, they would not have to work another day in their life.

"And what of you, friend," A serious man with red hair asked the dark haired man with the crooked nose. He had not pitched into the conversation, and they were all of them curious as to why he started chuckling.

"I'm innit for the cunt," he said with an easy grin, and licked his yellow teeth salaciously. The whole group went silent, paling at his words. There were anxious, unsure chuckles at the crude joke. They all avoided him afterwards.

Geth was amused by their disquiet. A wholly stuffy nosed bunch, the lot of them! Still, he considered himself fortunate to fall into such an easy job. His face had become too well known in Hollin, and once the lads in Tharbad found the round young thing he'd left in pieces by the river, they would be looking for him. If he hadn't happened upon the three thieves that had led him to this group, he would have had to face another stint in the mountains. Geth had no issue with the goblins there; a right friendly lot once you got to know them, with a fine sense of humor, but he imagined Lorbuz might be a bit miffed after the sordid affair Geth had with his sister, Grez. She was a nice enough girl, but too skinny for his tastes and too loud mouthed for his temperament. Still, his todger needed a dip, and Geth hadn't found a better lay than an orc woman. Those girls knew how to show a fellow a good time.

The main hall of Isengard was a large, vaulted room with a dark, foreboding air about it. The gloom inside was cut by shafts of gold light from high windows that illuminated specs of dust and pollen. A wide staircase on the far end of the hall rose up to a balcony. A gaunt, pale man dressed completely in black stood at the top of the stair. He might have been considered darkly handsome of not for the dubious air about him and the marked shrewdness in his grey eyes. The corners of his mouth curled with a knowing grin at the pack of men gathered in the auspicious foyer of Isengard. One of the older Dunlendings, a tall, broad, grey haired chief stepped forward, eying the pale gentleman suspiciously.

"You aren't the White One," the chief said, annoyed. "The Wizard calls us here on business and can't be bothered to greet us, eh?"

"The Master will be with you shortly," the pale man assured them, gesturing grandly. "Please, follow me. Accommodations have been made for your stay here."

The group of Dunland men glanced about, unsure. "Who're you, then?" another man asked.

"Thegn," the pale man said with a mocking bow. "Your humble servant, good man, and loyal hand to our goodly Master. Now, please, allow me to escort you to the dining hall. After all," Thegn added with a crude smirk, "you men must keep up your strength for what is to come."

There was an uncomfortable clearing of throats and nervous glancing about before the Dunland men followed Thegn up the stairs and through the winding, circular hallways to another impossibly large, vaulted room with wide, open windows overlooking the neatly manicured lawns below. The better portion of the room was filled with an opulent, redwood table. It was piled with food and tankards of ale and carafes of wine. A place was set for each man present; a mysterious occurrence, since they had not announced their number before they arrived. Thegn ushered the men inside, and, once they were sitting and helping themselves and chatting amiably, shut the arched, gilded doors behind them.

What a spread! Geth dug into the piles of roasted fowl and potatoes with hearty abandon. His compatriots were a loosening up with a few mugs of ale. Laughing and joking and putting their minds at ease, but Geth left his mead mostly untouched. After all, he had a long night ahead of him. Better to save his thirst for later. The conversation at the table was mostly innocuous, and steered clear of their reason for being in Isengard.

Mostly, the men discussed their hate for the Rohirrim and the Wizard's promise to see them reinstated to their ancestral land. Even the rougher blokes in the group fell in with this topic. Geth scoffed to himself. He was a Dunlander by birth, but had not associated himself with that land since he was a small lad, displaced by straw headed soldiers. What remained of his kin went north, driven out of Dunland by tribes already scraping by. Geth had no loyalty to any country or people, and had lived on his own feet, by his own wits, since he was old enough to leave the miserable hut of his drunken, hard fisted father.

The men at the table were roaring, their duty here mostly forgotten in their beer. Geth used a small, fowl rib bone to pick at his teeth, leaning back in his chair comfortably as he listened to them jabbering on around him. He wondered how long they would be kept here waiting. Though he had to appreciate the subtlety with which the Wizard worked. The idiots around him had mostly forgotten their unease all together, and a few even made randy jokes, laughing bravely, as though they were sitting in the waiting room of a brothel. Geth smiled toothily at that thought, rolling the bone on his tongue before spitting it onto the stone floor.

"Gentlemen," a sonorous voice broke the conversation. The men assembled turned towards the door, where a tall, elderly man stood, clothed in the whitest robes Geth had ever seen. Beneath his long, white beard and bushy brows, his sharp blue eyes were knowing and serious. "I am pleased to see you all are in good spirits," continued the Wizard, for Geth imagined could be no one else. "Rest assured, your efforts will aid in bringing about the downfall of the wretched Men of Rohan."

There was a general, rumbling approval among the Dundelings. The Wizard smirked subtly, his long, bony fingers steepled at his waist. "The progeny you beget here will tear asunder the very heart of Rohan," the Wizard told them with a well rehearsed flair. "They will reap such vengeance upon your foes, that the horse men will have no choice but submit, and you will know it is Dunland folk that strike down your enemy."

There was a round of noble nods and fierce eyes that burned for reprisal for what was lost to their forefathers. Geth smiled and shook his head. It was a fine tactic, to rouse men with thoughts of glory, and he had to appreciate the cunning of the old man standing at the door. These lads might have had a mind to back out last minute, but now there was honor and fealty at stake, and leaving would seem like treachery to their own people. Geth, who had never bothered with honor or fealty, stood with the rest of them, eager for a pleasurable night and a heap of gold at the end of it. A little of that coin might go to Lorbuz and Grez to buy their easy forgiveness. At least then Geth might have a safe place to winter and a little highway robbery besides, if Lorbuz was of a mind to cut him in again.

A pair of goblins, their rough skin mottled shades of gray and black, waddled in behind the Wizard, and the Dunland men shuffled anxiously to see them. "My servants will see to the preparations," the Wizard said gesturing to the orcs, who bobbed their heads obligingly. With a final, dire nod to the men gathered, Saruman the White swept grandly out of the room.

"Hurry on den," one of the goblins rumbled, waving the men along. Hie was a stout, tiny fellow in a ratty, brown tunic, with long arms and blood red eyes and a little dollop of thinning, black hair in the center of his skull.

"Don't wassste our time, sha!" the other goblin hissed, annoyed, as she picked up the rear. She was wearing a loose, baggy dress tied at her thick waist, her matted hair pulled back in a rough piece of twine. The she orc's long, wiry arms shooed them along, and her wide hand shot out and slapped Geth hard on the thigh, urging him to pick up the pace.

"Now, now, my lovely," Geth said with a cheerful, toothy smile as he rubbed the sting she left him appraisingly, "no need to rough me up."

The she orc regarded him curiously, her bright, green eyes running up and down his form as she walked behind him. She huffed loudly through her hooked nose, fogging the metal ring that hung between her slitted nostrils. Her pointed ears pinned back as she narrowed her eyes. "Spent some time 'round my folk, eh?" she queried, her voice sharp and hissing.

Geth looked ahead at the stiff cadence of the men in front of him, their bearing wholly uncomfortable as they descended the dark stairway after the male goblin. They had gone completely silent, like a line of grim faced soldiers going into battle. A few were peering over their shoulders at him, confused by his easy manner. Geth turned back to the female behind him and grinned charmingly. "Obvious, is it?"

She smirked, open mouthed, and ran her long, red tongue along the sides of her molars. "Just a fuckin' bit," she snickered.

The orcs led them down flight after flight of stairs, until they came to a heavy wood door that led into a long, stone hallway. The male orcs led them to a long, narrow room with two dozen large wash basins set up inside. "Ge' in der an' clean yer stink off," he growled. "Yuh'll piss off duh girls smeliin' like yuh do, an' yuh don't want dem girls piss'd off atcha."

The men silently filed in and stripped, washing down with the pine scented water. Geth scrubbed himself with a quick vigor, pleased to have a bath after a long stretch without. The water was pleasantly warm, and the cloths had a light texture to them, which helped scrape the dirt and sweat off. He was quickly cleaned, with extra time spent around his balls, and changed into a fresh pair of breeches provided by his hosts. They even supplied a number of wooden picks to sort the knots in his hair out. Geth was the first one out of the washroom, feeling spiffier than he had in a good long while.

The male goblin snorted at him as he emerged from the room with a spring in his step. The orc had a ledger in his hands now, and he looked Geth over before setting the small piece of graphite to the pages. "Give us yer name, den."

"Geth," he supplied with a little bow.

"Age?" the goblin asked as he scrawled in the ledger, his tongue caught between his lips.

Geth paused at that, wrinkling his nose. "Hurr," the man grumbled. "Twenty and six, there abouts."

Nodding, the goblin made more hasty marks as another man stepped up behind Geth. The female orc came up alongside her comrade, looking over his shoulder as he scrawled in the book. "Nar, nar," she hissed. "Don' put 'im there. Have 'im in with Bidush. Poor girl could use a lad that'll appreciate 'er."

The goblin male gave the female a shrewd look, but scribbled over whatever he was writing to make a correction. "Fine den," he grumbled. "You go off wit' Dezek, 'ere." The goblin thrust his thumb at the female by his side, and Geth grinned as he followed her down the hallway, through a door and down several dozen more stairs. Geth could hear the muffled sound of construction going on behind the stone walls, but he didn't bother to ask what all the noise was about.

Dezek led him into another long hallway. There were rows of doors with heavy, metal bolts on either side of the long passage. The she orc unbolted a door about halfway down and paused to regard Geth seriously. "You give 'er a good time, now," Dezek said sternly. "She ain't never had a fella what could stand the sight a her, but I'm bettin' you know how ta treat a lady." The orcess grinned lewdly at him, her needle sharp teeth flashing in her dark face, and Geth returned the expression.

"I'm in a mind to remedy that," he assured her.

Snorting, Dezek ushered him inside. "Have a good time, lad," she snickered, and bolted the door behind him.

Geth gaped at the large female orc before him. His only dealings were with the smaller goblins of the Misty Mountains, and the largest of them barely reached his collar bone, but this she orc was easily a head taller than him and twice as wide in the shoulders. She was sitting, half facing away from him on a fluffy pile of straw, her long, thick arms wrapped around her crossed legs. When she heard him enter, she looked at him with large, red eyes. Her thick hair grew in a row down the center of her skull and half covered her giant, wide face.

Really, Geth was less impressed with her countenance, though it was pleasantly smooth and young looking despite her coarse, slanted features and large fangs, and more interested in her thick waist, wide, fleshy hips and plump rear. He had always been fond of a round arse, and this she orc had all he could want and then some. Her breasts were a sight to behold, heavy and round and easily the size of his head. He could build a cottage and live on her tits. Best of all, she was completely naked, stripped for his benefit, he imagined. A slow, pleased smile crept over his lips at the expanse of sable flesh before him, marred only on her muscular back by a few thick, silver scars obviously caused by a lash. Geth frowned at that. What a disgrace, to whip something so fine looking.

The she orc swallowed roughly and rolled to her knees, facing the wall as she exposed herself to him. His mouth went dry at the sight of her red, swollen folds, and he felt his arousal rise in ernest. The orcess rested her head on her arms with a long suffering sigh and squeezed her eyes shut.

Bidush had come to Isengard with her mother when she was still very small, answering the call of their master with a few hundred other females from the tribes in Angmar. Too young to whelp, she had been separated from the breeding females and kept in a den with the other young girls for several years. That had been as close to happy as she had ever been here, playing with the other girls, eating her fill and singing rough songs in their own tongue. She missed being up top, running free under the night sky, but her service to The Shadow had not seemed so terrible when she was surrounded by her sisters.

The moment she was able to breed, she was separated from the younger girls and brought to a small cell; the same cell she inhabited now. Bidush had been sad and lonely, but she knew also this was the work expected of her. Dezek would come and keep her company often. Since her caretakers had been local goblins, Bidush's Common was better than the older she orcs brought here, and she had an easier time speaking with the snaga than her mother's generation. The males of her kind went up to fight and hunt, and she didn't feel like she could complain, considering how well fed and pampered she was. Besides, she enjoyed feeling her whelps grow. Letting them go was hard, but that was expected of her too, so she endured it with as much grace as she could. Nursing orcesses could not breed, and Bidush knew she had to breed. That's what the Shadow needed her for, and that's what she would do. The only thing she couldn't stomach was the breeding itself.

It wasn't that she found the men brought to her all that repulsive. They were strange, hairy things, but not foul looking in any particular way. She might even considered them adorable, like large flat faced badgers, if not for their obvious disgust with her. Bidush had whelped eight times since she was brought to her cell, two for every year. The first time had been the worst. It was painful and uncomfortable and though Dezek had warned her of the pain, it did nothing to aid her when that first man thrust into her. He had been quick, and while her heat ensured that she was slick enough to receive him, he did nothing to make the experience even remotely tolerable. When he withdrew from her and caught sight of her blood on him, he had screamed in horror and vomited before pounding on the door to her cell to be let out. The man left that same night, and her Master ordered her whipped for loosing him a willing male. Dezek had patted her shoulder and spoke soothing words as she later salved Bidush's wounds, but the goblin's assurances did nothing to assuage the utter humiliation Bidush had felt.

The men that followed had been better, but not by much. They looked at her with such revulsion, it made her want to shrivel and die. She didn't even bother to meet their gaze now, assuming the required position and closing her eves to their disgust. She did her best to remain quiet while they finished, since the one time she had begun to enjoy the act itself, the man with her had yelled at her to be silent. She would think of the little one that would soon be growing inside her and the important work she was doing for her Master, and she would ignore the sick feeling of their spilt seed running down her leg. Bidush always scrubbed herself twice as hard when a man was breeding her.

She assumed this man to be no different from the rest of them, so when he did not get right down to what he should be doing, she expected the worst, and hoped he wouldn't leave and tell her master. Then, there was a rustling behind her, and the man grunted. Hazarding a glance, Bidush saw that he had removed his breeches, which he now folded and laid over his boots. He was a wiry fellow, despite his broad shoulders. When he turned towards her again, Bidush was a little surprised to see he was already impressively aroused, but she dismissed that immediately. A few of the men had prepared themselves before breeding her.

Tucking her head into her arms, she readied herself for the brief, embarrassing encounter she knew was coming. Instead of the quick thrusting she expected, the man lad his palm on her rear, running his hand down the crease of her buttocks to rub her exposed folds. Two, calloused fingers pumped into her with languid slowness as the man stroked her back, grunting out an appreciative groan.

"You've got a lovely cunny, my duck," the man purred as his fingers pressed against a particularly sensitive area inside her. Bidush stifled a pleased moan, afraid that he would stop what he was doing.

He was pulling her to sit up, and Bidush dazedly allowed it, unsure of what to do. When he sat himself in her lap she was completely baffled. Then, his hot mouth was on her breast, his teeth lightly grazing her nipple as he massaged her with both hands. It felt wonderful, but Bidush was fearful he was doing this wrong. She would be in a bad way if no whelp came from her.

She grabbed the man by the shoulders, her large hands enveloping his biceps, and pulled him off of her. "What you doing?" she growled suspiciously. "I have no sprog, I have trouble!"

The man smiled broadly at her, and Bidush felt her anger soften. "No need to rush, my sweet," he said with a flash of blunt, yellow teeth. "We've got all night. Now, why don't you let Geth do you proper?"

Blinking, Bidush released Geth, who went immediately to her other breast, kneading and sucking until she had fallen back onto the hay, gasping. His hands were all over her, pinching and caressing and slapping her flanks. By the time he finally entered her, she had already shuddered with a climax, and her second came not long after he began thrusting with wild abandon. Bidush rocked her head from side to side, moaning with pleasure. Her heat heightened all of her senses, intensifying every stroke inside her, every subtle twist he made with his hips, and Bidush found her own hips thrusting to meet his, urging him on. Another orgasm rippled through her when she felt him stiffen. Geth clutched her to himself with surprising strength, practically roared as he came, and collapsed on her, spent completely. Bidush panted, feeling the soft puffs of Geth breathing against her breast. His hand kneaded the flesh at her hip as he softened and slid out of her, and Bidush found she didn't mind the post coital messiness she usually despised. Feeling more contented than she ever remembered being, Bidush encircled Geth in her arms, cuddling him close with a pleased coo. What a man!

Geth pulled himself up her body and kissed her wetly on the mouth, squeezing her bountiful, dark breast appreciatively. "You give me a minute, heart," he said huskily, "and we'll have another round."

Bidush's heavy brow shot up in surprise. "Again?" she asked, amazed. No man had ever wanted her more than was strictly necessary. Then again, none of the males brought to breed with her had ever made her feel like this one did.

"Didn't you enjoy yourself?" Geth asked her with a crestfallen expression. Bidush nodded fervently, and he smiled wide at her. "Then you give me a minute," he told her, "and we'll have some more fun, you and me. How's that sound, my duck?"

Biting her lip, Bidush nodded again, returning his smile. Geth had her more than twice. By the time he mounted her for the fourth time, Bidush decided she never wanted him to leave. Any man brought to her after this one would pale in comparison. Finally, neither of them could go on any longer. Instead of pounding on the door to leave, Geth pulled the large fur blanket piled up in the corner over them both. Bidush rolled on her side, clutching him to her chest with her large, thick arms.

The clacking sound of the bolt turning brought Geth to wakefulness. Dezek's dark head peeked in, her brow furrowed. Geth couldn't decide if she looked surprised or annoyed. Perhaps she was both. "Fergot you were in here," she said. "Yer folk usually bang on the door to get out."

Smiling, Geth shrugged easily.

"Well," Dezek said, unsure, "Master had a room fer you fellas made up, if ya want it."

Geth looked over at Bidush's peaceful, sleeping face, and brushed some of her messy hair out of her eyes. He had really worn her out. The straw bedding was comfortable enough, by Geth's standards, her arm was still draped over him possessively, and Geth would rather sleep next to a warm body than not. "I'm fine where I am," he said, grinning.

Shaking her head, Dezek grinned back. "Arright," she said with a chuckle. "I'll get ya out at breakfast then."

Geth closed his eyes as the bolt clanked shut, a pleased smile on his face.

Note: Thegn is adapted from þegn, an old english word that means "follower or vassal of a great man." The office of Saruman's vassal is later held by Grima, with promises of Lady Éowyn .