What had felt like hours later, we still hadn't found anything that could help us escape out of Orthanc. We had found maps and books about Mordor, Gondor, and many other realms and places. We also found books about the One Ring and read about how powerful it actually was.

I was in a corner of the room digging through maps and books. It took me a little longer because of my bad arm. It still stung badly, I tried to ignore it. I lifted up a red hardcover book that had a cover of the Shire. I smiled and opened it. As I did so, a small and wrinkled map fell out. It was of Isengard. In my excitement of my accomplishment, I stood up fast. My head hit a shelf and a whole shelf of books fell to the ground loudly. We both looked at each other and held you a finger to our lips saying, "shhh,"

We heard voices coming and we quickly dove under the table. Thankfully, the table had a white cloth over it. I stuffed the map in my jacket pocket and we stayed silence.

"Did you hear something?" one gruff voice said.

"No, I don't know what you are talking about," another voice answered. A second later we heard another book fall to the ground. Opps. Merry put his hand to his forehead and shook his head.

"See, I told you. You're deaf," the first voice said.

"You're blind. You can't even guard two filthy ring maggots!" the other yelled back.

"Don't insult me!"

The room then was filled with the sound of clattering swords and yelling angry orcish words. A crash of glass cracked on the floor to the left of us and to the right there were more books falling. As the orcs were fighting, one of the swords slashed a thin slice through the table cloth. Through the slice in the cloth, we could tell that one of the orcs was the one that had guarded our cell. If he saw us, we would definitely be goners.

The fighting kept going on and on, it was getting uncomfortable and tense. If we didn't get out of here now, we would soon get chopped up. I tried mouthing to Merry, "I have a map," I took out a corner of the map out of my pocket to show him. He nodded, hopefully understanding what I meant.

We weren't sure if we should sit out the fight under the table and risk something bad could happen to us, or try to leave without being seen. Merry decided we should go. We waited until we were in the orcs blind spot and then we started to crawl to the closest door. I crawled with my knees and my good arm. I probably looked like a limping dog.

We got to the next room unseen. As we got to the next room, we gave a quick look around to make sure nobody was in it. Nobody was, thankfully, so we stood up. I gave the room a better look and my mouth dropped open. I looked to Merry; he looked as outstanded as I did.