Chapter 15. Thorn: Dark Waters

One of the serving women, called by the others only "Nana", reached into her clothing to remove a hidden flask. ‘Just a sip each,’ she warned, passing it to  Berenarth’s wife. Emeldwyn nodded slowly. Unwrapping the babe she bore, she tipped the flask to wet her finger, and then she rubbed the liquid on the baby’s gums. The babe’s eyes widened and the little one sucked greedily at his mother's finger.

 ‘There’s a love,’ she said softly. ‘Time to sleep.’ She watched until the little eyelids began to droop, and then wrapped the infant once more, binding the babe firmly to her body to leave her hands free. She poured a tiny amount into the cup that served as the top of the flask, holding it to a toddler’s mouth. The child gave a soft exclamation of delight and asked for more in a lisping voice, but the mother shook her head with a smile, saying, ‘You’ve had your share. Let’s bundle you warm, now, for it’s time to sleep.’

The older children did not protest that they’d been sleeping all day, for they knew what would follow as soon as the little ones were dosed to sleep, gagged against crying out in their dreams, and securely bound to the women’s fronts and backs.

While these preparations were being made, Bucca tied cloth over the pony’s hoofs, that no sound might betray them amongst the rocks atop the cliff overlooking the plain.

Thulion coaxed a dose of the sleeping draught into Berenarth, gently tied a gag in place, and lifted his lord onto the pony’s back. Bucca moved to the pony’s head, with Berenarth’s eldest beside him. ‘My lord Berethor,’ the hobbit whispered. ‘I wish you all safe journey.’

 ‘And swift return,’ the lad said grimly, sounding much older than his ten years. ‘They’ll pay. Mark my words.’

Bucca nodded slowly. Vengeance was foreign to a hobbit heart, but he was sick at the thought of death and ruin spilling across the peaceful Shire, and before that, the slaughter of innocent babes and their mothers and sisters, not to mention the faithful guardsmen who fought to the last man to protect them.

In silence beneath a thin slivered Moon they walked from the edge of the wood to a place where jumbled boulders marked the descent Thulion had chosen.

Thulion lifted Berenarth from the pony and knelt upon the ground near the edge of the cliff while Bucca steadied the son of the King behind him. The aide had tied Berenarth’s hands together; now he slipped his lord’s arms over his head, pulling the limp body against his back. Young Berethor wound strips of dark cloth around the torsos of both Men until his father was securely bound to the aide.

With Bucca and Berethor guiding him, Thulion crawled to the edge of the cliff, easing his legs, and Berenarth’s, into space. Bucca held tight though the thought of the drop below made his head swim, until the aide had gained a foothold. At Thulion’s nod, Bucca released his hold, and the Man began the slow descent to the plain.

Watchfires were scattered like two jewelled lines the length of the plain, as far as Bucca could see. The snow glowed eerily in the thin moonlight; the canvases that sheltered sleeping soldiers were pools of shadow. The stream meandered, cold and steaming, through the two opposing armies that might have been frozen in time.

Though heavily burdened, Thulion made the descent silently. When he was well down, the children began. Bucca watched in horrified fascination as one by one, these little ones—not even as tall as a hobbit, most of them—moved down the side of the cliff as if they had feet like the ants he’d watched as a child, that could climb up or down a sheer surface without slip or fall.

Next the women began, grimly silent but determined. The children had scampered down the rock face by comparison. Each woman had a small child bound to her front and another bound to her back, hampering her in climbing though none protested or balked. The two serving women with silvering hair were slow and careful in their movements, though they bore their years with fortitude.

The last woman to descend was the first Bucca had seen in the byre as this nightmare had begun, the woman who’d emerged behind the wary guardsman though he’d told her to stay. Bucca still remembered the exasperated but knowing look on the Man’s face. He’d evidently known her well. It came as a shock to see an echo of the soldier in her face now, as the moonlight stripped years from her countenance. A kinsman, he’d obviously been, perhaps even a son. Dead now, of course, holding the Bridge against the forces of Angmar to the last.

She eased her lower limbs over the cliff and paused, leaning on the edge to stare into the crouching hobbit’s eyes. ‘Bless you,’ she whispered. ‘You brought us through. We’ll never forget.’

 ‘My lady,’ he whispered in return, to be answered by a wry twist of the woman’s mouth. Evidently it was the wrong thing to call her, but Bucca knew little of the niceties of Men’s society. Before he could beg her pardon, however, she reached to cup his face in her hand.

 ‘Bless you,’ she repeated. ‘May you be led safe back to your family, and may they be preserved from harm as they await you.’ In the next moment she was gone, making her way slowly down the cliffside.

Bucca dared to lean over the side, clutching at the rocks to either side until his hands ached from the strain, to follow the small black shadows that slipped along the base of the cliff towards the stream. He heard nothing, not a splash or overloud gasp or little one's cry as each shadow slipped into the black water and disappeared. Still he watched until he grew stiff with cold and the moon began to set in the Western sky. Halfway to dawning, he thought. What would the dawn bring?

There was no stir in the enemy camp, no sign of the passing of the little band of refugees at all. He wondered if they’d frozen and drowned, carried to the Lune and then to the Sea. At least they’d be beyond the reach of Angmar.

He scooted back from the cliff’s edge until he could turn and crawl to where the hobbled pony waited. He removed the hobbles and silently slipped once more into the forest. He travelled perhaps a mile before finding a thicket suitable to conceal the pony, and crawling into a hollow nearby, ducking under thorny bramble bushes, he pulled his cloak over his head and gave himself up to sleep.

A/N: Chapter edited: Bucca withdraws from cliff's edge at midnight rather than dawn.