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Thain  by Lindelea


Chapter 32. Thain: The Right Place... But the Right Time?

Bucca felt small, true, for he was no more than a child in stature when measured against those who rode with him now, a body of Men with a sprinkling of Elves among them, more than a mere scouting party, that they not be taken by surprise, but less than the great army that would ride this way in days to come.

But he felt smaller yet, shrinking into himself in dismay as they rode through the land that one day would be known as the Green Hill country, with its rolling, grassy hills—though to Bucca, they were more mountain than hill. When he’d led Berenarth’s party through the wilderland in the heart of the Shire, the hills had been clothed in luxuriant growth, part of the great forest that marched across Middle-earth from the Sea to the plains. That forest is only a memory now amongst Elves and Ents with long memories, but to Bucca it had been a living and breathing essence, and he grieved to see the blackened stubs of trees thrusting in silent agony to the sky, as they followed the fouled stream meandering between the hills.

‘But there is life,’ his saddle-companion murmured, one arm tightening around the despairing hobbit. ‘Look, see, the green of new life growing up amidst the ruin.’ And it was true; there were grasses sending questing shoots into the air, and even a few bright flowers dared to bloom in the desolation.

But Bucca thought of the End of the Wood, near Stock, where his family had gone into hiding, and he shuddered. Had all the trees been burned over their heads? Was anything left?

‘Are you ill?’

Bucca looked up and behind, seeing sorrow in the ageless face of the Elf riding with him, Cirdan’s representative, sent to the Halflings on behalf of the Elf lord and crownless King of Arnor. ‘I am well, Galdor,” he said, and tried to smile, for surely it was worse for the Fair Folk, for whom each burned-out husk was a voice forever stilled. ‘Those of Angmar may have thought to leave dark ruin, but they did not reckon with the power of seed and sunshine, rain and wind.’

He supposed it would have been just as bad, if not worse, to ride with the army following the great East-West Road, to see heaps of rubble where tidy buildings had stood, and the fields lying fallow. No signs of life anywhere; where had all the hobbits gone?

Despite the small signs of life around them, the horses walked with drooping heads, the Men talked softly or not at all, and the Elves... the sense of distress from the Elves was nearly palpable. But Bucca felt Galdor straighten behind him, and suddenly he heard the Elf’s voice, soft but defiant, breathe a song.

After so many months among the Elves of Lindon, he knew enough of their tongue to take the meaning of the song, and his heart lifted as more of the Elves joined, their voices in their caution scarcely more than the lonely breeze sighing through the hollows of the burned-out trees.

O! Wanderers in the shadowed land
despair not! For though dark they stand,
the fire-blasted trees, in death,
yet life anew doth rise on breath
of moisture brought on fresh’ning breeze
to bless these ruined lands, from Seas
far to the West. Though these woods fail
new life arising shall prevail...

The night came down and the sky above filled with stars, bright and sparkling, clean, somehow, and freshening the bowl of the heavens with their light. Song soft as dream came from the Elves riding in the company, and Bucca’s chin drooped and jerked, and finally rested on his breast as they rode along.

And when he wakened in wonder, they were riding in the shadow of trees, dim around him in the dawnlight. ‘We’ve come to the End of the Woods,’ Galdor said, having noted Bucca’s awakening. ‘And it seems that not all woods in the Shire have found an end, though the torches of Angmar wrought terrible ruin in the Hills.’

‘And Stock,’ Bucca said. ‘They burned Stock, you know.’

Galdor was silent, as if in assent.

Ciryanor reined closer, his leg bumping against Galdor’s. ‘They burned the Yale as well,’ the son of Arvedui said, raising an arm to point.

‘The Yale!’ Bucca whispered, and felt talons of dread seize his heart, seeing the ruin there that had once been a bustling community. Of a wonder the flames had not taken the surrounding wood; perhaps because of the heavy snow that had been falling at the time Angmar’s forces overran Stock and the Yale.

‘You said that your people would be found nearby,’ Galdor said, raising his hand in signal. The company halted. ‘We will make camp here, just inside the trees, and await you.’

He slipped from the horse’s back and lifted Bucca from the saddle. The hobbit was stiff from long riding, and his nether regions were rather... sore, to put it gently, but he bowed to the Elf lord and said, ‘Half a mile, and yes, it is better that you remain here, for if they have any inkling of your coming they’ll disappear and I might never find them.’

‘So the Lord Aranarth instructed us,’ Galdor said, but he laid a staying hand upon Bucca’s shoulder. ‘But you must take some sustenance before you leave us... if only a bite, and a sip, for strength and hope.’

Bucca took the proffered journey-bread, cramming it in his mouth without much appreciating the fine taste, for he was eager to be off, to find his loved ones, who must be in the wood, they must be, for if they were not, then he had no reason to continue.

He had a moment’s flash of wandering the wood, a thin, ragged creature, having lost his greatest treasure, and thrust this bleak picture from himself. No, he told himself, gathering the shreds of his courage. No, but he’d take his bow though he were the only bowman in Aranarth’s army, and he’d repay those of Angmar for the ruin they had wrought...

The sip he had from Galdor’s flask steadied him, made the earth feel more solid under his feet, as if he awakened from dark dream to dawning hope, and he recognised the strengthening drink they’d given him while he lay, sick and wounded, after the crossing of the Lune. He nodded thanks, handed back the flask, and said, ‘Tonight, then, at dusk...’

‘We’ll be watching,’ Galdor said.

Though many of the company looked after Bucca's going, only the sharpest eyes saw him for very long. In a twinkling he faded into the shadows of the trees, and was gone.

***

A/N: The Elves' song is adapted from "The Old Forest" in Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R. Tolkien.





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