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Thain  by Lindelea

Chapter 13. Guiding the Flock

They walked through the night, stopping only long enough to shift burdens; at times a serving woman would give her bundle to a Mistress and lift a child to her back, and some time later they would trade burdens. The aide walked alongside the pony bearing the son of the king, and Berenarth leaned upon him at times, but neither spoke.

Bucca bore a flickering torch to guide those who followed him, though he didn’t need to see to know where he was going. Some built-in sense of direction told him, without help from moon or stars, that they were heading more-or-less directly into the West.

As they travelled away from the River, the country climbed slowly, a long, gradual rise. To the north lay farmlands on either side of the great Road, cleared and ploughed and ready for the kiss of spring sunshine, sleeping under a blanket of snow.

Bucca wondered how long the soldiers of the King had held the Bridge, and if even now death was sweeping across the well-ordered land, racing down the Road on foam-flecked horses, swinging sharp blades at any living thing they found, firing villages and farmers’ homes and byres and haystacks, sowing ruin and reaping destruction, staining the serene snow-blanket with crimson horror. He could only hope that Hamwise’s warnings had not been too late in arriving. In his mind’s eye he saw families of hobbits hurrying across the snowy fields with hastily-packed bundles, seeking refuge in the woods. He hoped that the soldiers of Angmar would not follow and search the woods for his charges.

With the dawning he’d called a halt, finding a thicket of thorns, showing the Big Folk how to burrow under the snow, wiggle their way on their bellies into the midst of the briars, huddling together for warmth. Though scratched and bleeding, they were sheltered, out of the wind, and out of sight. A thick covering of snow lay over the top of the brambles, a roof of sorts, and as the snow continued to fall it would blot out the trail they’d left.

Bucca went on some ways with the pony, tying the beast securely before going to ground himself a little distance away in an abandoned hollow in a snow-covered log. He’d left strict instructions that the Big Folk were not to stir from their hiding until he came for them at dusk or after. He wrapped himself in his cloak, chewed a strip of dried meat, took a few swallows from his wineskin, and slept.

He wakened before the Sun sought her bed, listening to the winter silence in the forest. No wind stirred the branches, and all the forest creatures seemed to be in hiding. He heard no rumour of Men, and at dusk he emerged from the log, collected the pony, and went back to gather up his flock for another night’s journey.

So they travelled, night after night, under star-filled sky, peeping through the bare branches, or gentle snow that sifted peacefully down upon them. The land continued to rise, slowly, until they reached the first of the great hills in the area that one day would be named Green Hill country. Someday these hills would be crowned with grass, fine grazing for sheep, and the valleys would be filled with farms, with only occasional copses of trees, but now the forest marched unbroken over the ever-growing heights, all the way to where the cliffs of the Far Downs demarcated the edge of the land given Hobbits by a long-dead king.

Bucca was grateful for the cover the forest provided. Had they escaped over the open plain, the forces of Angmar likely would have overtaken them by now. Surely the Witch King sought the sons of Arvedui. Without doubt his Men had orders to search every body, look into every face, making sure the line of kings was ended.

Sometimes Berenarth’s eldest son would pace alongside the hobbit. Any hobbit lad would have chattered away, but this boy walked in grim silence, eyes haunted by what he’d seen as Fornost fell. Berenarth himself weakened as his fever grew, and before they reached the Far Downs they had to bind him to keep him on the pony, and gag him to stifle his ravings as they travelled.

After days of travel, Bucca lay on his belly, wriggling forward through the snow to the cliff edge, to look out over the plain. Thulion, Berenarth’s aide, lay beside him. The Man pointed to the shadowy hills on the horizon. ‘Tower Hills,’ he said.

 ‘And beyond them, the Sea,’ Bucca said. ‘And then what? You’ll sail away on ships, beyond Angmar’s reach?’

 ‘We will ask aid of Cirdan,’ Thulion said, shrugging deeper into his cloak. ‘At the very least the sons of the King will find refuge in Lindon, until Gondor comes. The Elves are no friends of Angmar.’

Gondor. A vast land, far to the South, teeming with Men. Bucca tried to imagine it, and couldn’t. He’d never seen more than a score of Men together at any one time. Men came into the Shire, certainly, travelling the King’s Road, or peddling their wares, or singing songs or telling tales in exchange for food and a place to sleep. They never came in great numbers, for the King had given the Shire, from River to Far Downs, to the Shire-folk, and Men, though they might traverse its span, were not allowed to settle.

They were nearly to cliff’s edge, and then they must discover how to descend safely. The Road ran through a cleft in the cliff and steeply down, but how safe was that way? Did the soldiers of Angmar hold the plain against them, waiting to slay refugees coming through the Shire?

Bucca wriggled forward, sliding over the snow. His fingers found purchase in some icy rocks, and he pulled himself cautiously to the edge of the cliff and looked over. He gasped and ducked his head quickly.

 ‘What is it?’ Thulion hissed, pulling himself quickly to the edge and peering over. He swore under his breath.

Two armies were spread out upon the plain. The aide read the banners. ‘Our Men,’ he said, ‘are holding the line. But Angmar is greater; she must have poured half her hoards onto the plain.’

Bucca nodded, sick at the thought of all those Men crossing his homeland, and the destruction that must have been wrought as war swept over the Shire. He hoped that most of the Shire-folk had fled into hiding, rather than being crushed beneath advancing Angmar.

 ‘How will we get down?’ he whispered.

 ‘We’ll crawl, like insects, after darkness falls,’ Thulion said, ‘But you needn’t test your mettle, Bucca. We’ll leave you and the pony here, with thanks for your aid, and hopes to return with a suitable reward someday.’

 ‘No reward is needed,’ Bucca muttered. He’d only done what any hobbit would do, pressed by circumstance, driven by need and duty.

The aide continued, ‘I’ll tie my lord onto my back, to free my hands for climbing. The ladies can climb with the babes tied to them, and the older children have done enough climbing for sport that they’ll manage.’

Bucca shuddered. He couldn’t imagine climbing for “sport”, though he’d heard a wandering tale-teller spin a yarn about his little son climbing a tree just to see what he could see.

 ‘How then, through the enemy line?’ he whispered.

 ‘The stream,’ Thulion breathed, and the hobbit nodded. Icy cold yet warmer than the winter air, it essayed steaming from the downs, flowing across the plain, right through the two armies. From their vantage point he could see the soldiers of Arthedain guarding the streambed, but those of Angmar seemed to disdain the watercourse. Guards walked along the top of the banks, but none were in the stream itself. If they didn’t freeze in the water, the Big People could all but submerge themselves and slip past, letting the current carry them to safety.

 ‘I’ll watch you down,’ he said, ‘and return to our last hiding, to wait out the day, if for some reason you should need me further.’ He’d begin the long journey back to the Marish when darkness fell again, after he saw Thulion and his charges safely across the plain.

Thulion shuddered. ‘One dip in the stream is about all I’d care to take,’ he said, but then he placed a warm hand on Bucca’s shoulder. ‘I thank you,’ he said, ‘and I’ll keep it in mind, in case the King has need to send a message to the Shire-folk.’

Bucca turned to stare at the plain once more. ‘The King is there?’ he whispered, as his eyes searched the banners. Tokka!

 ‘He rode to the North on swift horses,’ Thulion said, ‘intending to swing southwards again as soon as he might. If he was pursued northwards and never came to Lindon, his sons were to take word to Cirdan, to send a ship for him.’

 ‘I don’t see his banner,’ Bucca said.

 ‘Banners fall with their bearers, even as the King rides on,’ Thulion said. ‘It is possible that there was not time for another to jump down from his saddle and take it up again. An army in retreat does not necessarily pay heed to the niceties of rank and order.’ A great number of banners, tokens of lords and knights of Arnor, were missing from the massed ranks spread over the plain.

The aide did not believe that the King would fall. Arvedui, strong and wise, having resisted Angmar to the end, would rise from the ashes of Fornost and reclaim his own. Thulion had saved one of the sons of the King. He could only hope the others had escaped as well. But even if Aranarth, the heir, was lost, the line would continue with Berenarth, or the son of Berenarth. Thulion rested his head on his forearm for a long moment. He was so close to bringing his injured lord, and Berenarth’s family, to relative safety. Even if the army of Arthedain were driven back across the plain, across the Lune itself, Lindon and Cirdan shone before his eyes, beacons of shelter.

 ‘Thulion?’ the hobbit whispered.

 ‘I will keep watch here,’ the aide said at last, raising his head once more. ‘You go back and tell the others to get what rest they may. Though they be chilled to the bone in the stream, when night next comes, they will again know the warmth of a watch fire when we reach the King.’





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