Tar Minyatur (Chapter 1)

Tar Minyatur (no, don't get that confused with Elros Tar Minyatur) was an elf from Mirkwood. He had been chased by a band of trolls on a hunting mission he had gone with his friends Bragolon, Estelmistion, Barador, Pellion, and Horthon. They ran in Mirkwood, somehow in another unknown forest.

Tar Minyatur and his company came out of the forest. They were in Dang, at the foothills of the Killridge Mountains, with no sense of where they were.

"We must get away from here before night falls. If we linger until it is dark the trolls will come," Tar Minyatur said.

"To where are we supposed to go?" Pellion asked, "We have no idea of where this is or what sort of monsters are in this country."

"And we are tired after such a long run!" Horthon exclaimed.

"I see a fruit tree over there..." Estelmistion said, pointing at the very edge of the forest a bow shot away.

"I do not recognize it. It may be poisonous," Horthon said.

"We will go over the mountain," Tar Minyatur said. He thought that that would buy them some time once they were on the other side of it, because the trolls would have to climb. Besides, how would the trolls know where they had gone, anyway?

As they headed up the mountain, Tar Minyatur kept giving nervous glances down at the ground until the ground was no longer visible. Not because he was afraid of heights, but because he was worried the trolls would follow them.

When the day died, they had to sleep open on a cliff instead of in a cave. Fortunately, there was no rain.

Tar said he would take first watch but he did not intend to have someone have a second watch. Of course he couldn't sleep. He had just been dumped into an unknown land after being chased by trolls. As a matter of fact, none of them slept much.

What sort of creatures were in this land? Are there people here? Where is this anyway? All these questions and more flashed through his head.

Eventually Tar did fall asleep. He woke up to two lizard looking figures on a cliff above them looking down.

"Should we take them?" the first lizard man said.

"I know you can't even hit the broad side of a barn with no bow," the second one said.

"Oh, shut up, Vop! I've hit tons o' things!"

"Yeah, maybe your head really hard."

"Vop! If you ain't gonna be stoppin', something else will hit it's head really hard after a very long fall!"

"Are you threatenin' me?" Vop said.

"You've guessed it, flower face!"

Vop hissed and drew his sword. A crooked, rusty, dull sword. "Totato head! And I don't mean the rotten kind!"

The other fang drew his sword as well, and they continued to insult each other.

"You smell like a human!"

"How dare you!"

As the two fangs were arguing with each other, Tar drew out an arrow slowly and put it to his bow string. He aimed it at the lizard's head and released. The arrow hit its mark, and the fang shrieked, spun around twice, and disappeared.

A cloud of dust and a piece of armor rained down on Tar, and he was knocked unconscious.