towers

584 the two towers
him up by his hair and stood him on his feet. Pippin fell
down, and Uglúk dragged him up by his hair again. Several
Orcs laughed. Uglúk thrust a flask between his teeth and
poured some burning liquid down his throat: he felt a hot
fierce glow flow through him. The pain in his legs and ankles
vanished. He could stand.
‘Now for the other!’ said Uglúk. Pippin saw him go to
Merry, who was lying close by, and kick him. Merry groaned.
Seizing him roughly Uglúk pulled him into a sitting position,
and tore the bandage off his head. Then he smeared the
wound with some dark stuff out of a small wooden box.
Merry cried out and struggled wildly.
The Orcs clapped and hooted. ‘Can’t take his medicine,’
they jeered. ‘Doesn’t know what’s good for him. Ai! We shall
have some fun later.’
But at the moment Uglúk was not engaged in sport. He
needed speed and had to humour unwilling followers. He
was healing Merry in orc-fashion; and his treatment worked
swiftly. When he had forced a drink from his flask down the
hobbit’s throat, cut his leg-bonds, and dragged him to his
feet, Merry stood up, looking pale but grim and defiant, and
very much alive. The gash in his forehead gave him no more
trouble, but he bore a brown scar to the end of his days.
‘Hullo, Pippin!’ he said. ‘So you’ve come on this little
expedition, too? Where do we get bed and breakfast?’
‘Now then!’ said Uglúk. ‘None of that! Hold your tongues.
No talk to one another. Any trouble will be reported at the
other end, and He’ll know how to pay you. You’ll get bed
and breakfast all right: more than you can stomach.’
The orc-band began to descend a narrow ravine leading
down into the misty plain below. Merry and Pippin, separated
by a dozen Orcs or more, climbed down with them. At
the bottom they stepped on to grass, and the hearts of the
hobbits rose.
‘Now straight on!’ shouted Uglúk. ‘West and a little north.
Follow Lugdush.’