The Oliphaunt Did It
The Battle of the Pelennor
by Protoguy

     Dentedfendor looked around him. The field was littered with bodies. He pushed the one he was hiding under off of himself and cautiously peered over another. A dead orc from the smell, or a Rider, he never could get used to that horsey smell. The coast looked clear. He got up on his hands and knees and crawled over towards a wagon that looked fairly intact. He could hide under there until the battle was done.
     He came from a long line of cowards. A long illustrious legacy of running and begging for mercy. A Fendor had been in every major battle for the last 600 years. Well, maybe "in" the battle isn’t accurate. Hiding from it. Or running from it.
     He had almost made it to the wagon when the old man almost killed him. Some drunk old fart who didn’t belong using sharp tools much less on a horse in the middle of battle flailing about with a sword. Dent had barely escaped having an ear sliced off by the old sot. The old man was in the process of bellowing like a stuck ox "Up, up, up Orlings" or something, like all the dead guys were gonna get up and help. He should be worried that that voice doesn’t make em wake up and drag his old butt down just to shut him up.
     But he kept bouncing around the field and yowling his demented call to arms, when, out of the sky, this....ugh! This nasty lizard-pigeon....thing, with some really dirty man on it’s back, flew down and freaked out the old guy so bad, he drove his horse right into the back of a dead Oliphaunt. One second he was squawling about fire and foes and the next, he’s crumpled up against the huge grey butt, the horse sticking halfway out, legs bicycling.
     Dent hid behind the wagon and watched as the pigeon-lizard waddled over to the horse and grabbed it’s hind legs, trying to pull it out of it’s predicament. The horse kicked convulsively and the pigeon-lizard fell backwards throwing the rider to the ground. He got up and straightened his hat, some iron thing that looked like he made it himself.
     At that moment a Rider stumbled backward into view, a small orc swinging a tree branch at her. She back-pedalled awkwardly, heading straight for the Oliphaunt.
     Dent felt vulnerable behind his cart. He was far too close to these lunatics for his own good and he started to look for a way out of there. The only way he could see was around behind the dude in the dirty rags. Man! He was dirty. His clothes were black with soot and he smelled like sulfur. Maybe he’s a miner or something. "Oh geez!" he thought, "maybe he’s a dwarf!" He had seen men who were smaller than dwarves, why not a dwarf that was taller than a man?
     He started to move to his left to see if he could sneak around behind the foul one, when he heard a squeak. He looked in the wagon and came eye to eye with a Hobbit. "Oh, great", he thought to himself, "just what I need." He knew this Hobbit too. He had been in Gondor yesterday. All made up like a soldier while the rest of the guards laughed behind his back. Mr Underbottom. Yeah. He was thinking about the Hobbit washing his nasty, hairy feet in the city’s fountain, when the little skeezer leaps out of the wagon whispering frantically, "Save me! Get me out of here! Do you have a horse? Get me out of here..." the momentum of his leap caused Dent to loose his balance and he stumbled backward. His arms flailing, his sword slices through the straps holding his pants up (ironically, it was another part of his family history to never lose their swords). His breeches slid down his legs to his knees. It became harder and harder to use his trussed up legs and he bounced a little to keep from falling. His skipping brought him even with the dirty fellow on the pigeon-lizard.
     It was about this time that he noticed the girl Rider fall flat on her rear, the orc swinging back the tree branch to smack her on the head. Many things happened at once. He finally stopped his backward momentum. The dirty guy had been trying to wipe off some pigeon stuff from his boots (like that was the dirtiest thing on him). He was on one knee with the other leg behind him. Dent’s flailing sword sliced through the fellow’s heel. The scream that issued from this guy reminded Dent of the little girls playing ’kiss the pig" behind the butcher shop when he was a kid. He almost thought to cover his ears, but he was too busy bouncing off the pigeon-lizard. The Hobbit flipped off of his back and came down on the pigeon-lizard’s. The bird thing leaped upwards to fly away from the deranged little person screaming in his ear like an elf with a smashed toe. It got about 2 feet off the ground before the reins (still in the hands of the dirty guy) jerked him back. The sudden tension yanked stinky-boy off of the ground, where he had been lying, moaning about his blankee or something, and flung him straight at the stumbling rider chick.
     They collided with a great crash. The mace he had been holding, came crashing down, breaking her arm and his body flattened her into a largish puddle of ... stuff. You know how battlefields get. Big pools of gore and blood and Oliphaunt droppings. He was the unfortunate recipient of her sword, which impaled him at the neck, slicing his head clean off. Dent thought he wouldn’t eat for a week after seeing that. The head flew into the air and hit the Hobbit square in the face, knocking him from the pigeon-lizard’s back. He fell with a splash next to the dirty fellow. The head remained in the saddle as the now freed pigeon-lizard flew off, looking for all the world like he was being flown by a filthy bodyless head.
     Dent took this opportunity to make his retreat before anymore of these mental patients stumbled into him, impaling him on a spear or slicing off his nose. The next day, after the "Great Battle" on the fields, he overheard someone talking about some "Prince of the Halflings" and the girl Rider who had destroyed the Great Enemy’s most powerful servant. No wonder they lost the battle he thought, if stinky-boy was their second-in-command. Oh well, he didn’t need fame. Just a new pair of pants.