Eat, Drink, and Be Merry by AdmirableMonster  

Puff

For the prompt "Puffing – hood – suggest – helped"

The rain was torrential, with not even a suggestion of relief, and the mud grew worse with each step the three terrified Orc cubs took.  “We’re never going to make it!” Sasha exclaimed shrilly.  Rehalzh put their hand under her elbow, trying to help her along.  

“It’s okay,” they said.  “We’re going to be okay, really.”

“We never should have come,” Sasha sobbed.  “We knew we were losing—and we did, and we didn’t even manage to find anything useful to take from the corpses.”

Arash folded her arms and snarled, “We had to try, didn’t we?  Dad needs the help.”

“And now we’re going to drown and he won’t even know what happened to us,” sobbed Sasha.

The sloshing noise of rain-on-mud was cut through suddenly by a the heavier sloshing noise of something heavy moving through the muck behind them.  Sasha shrieked and jumped; Rehalzh and Arash linked arms to stand in front of their sister.

Out of the grey, reeking mist forged a hooded figure on the back of one of the strong, stitched creatures.  Unlike the dead thing they were riding, the figure was alive, or some semblance of it: their breath puffed heavily in the air. Rather than riding on, they came to a clumsy halt beside the three children.

“A b-battlefield is no place for young ones,” said the figure, throwing back his hood to reveal a scarred and branded face, marked with the Lidless Eye.  “Get on.  She can t-take the weight if I walk beside her.”

Sasha moved immediately, but Arash grabbed her arm.  “You can’t,” she said, horrified.  “That’s the Mouth.”

The Mouth of Tar-Mairon winced as he let himself down from the side of his mount.  There was something wrong with his arm, which hung limp at his side.  “Never turn down an offer of h—elp,” he said.  “Regardless of who it is from.”

“But—” squeaked Arash.

“Shut up, you idiot,” hissed Rehalzh.  “Just get on the horse.  Do you want to drown?”

Sasha ducked round her sister and gratefully and clumsily began to clamber on.  After a frozen moment, Arash followed her, Rehalzh pacing her.

The Mouth helped the three of them up onto the creature, then sagged against the side.  “I’m s-sorry, my lord,” he murmured.  “But I must see to the living first.”

The stitched creature with its heavy burden moved off, swimming steadily in the watery murk, leaving no trace behind for the Elves or Men of the Last Alliance, even if they had the desire to pursue.