Chapter 45. Thorn: Not All Those Who Wander...

‘...to drive out Angmar and cleanse the land of horror,’ Bucca said. He looked around the crowd of faces surrounding him; some were familiar but many were not. His father, the Thorn, had called a Shire-moot, and clan and community leaders, along with any who had skill with a bow, had answered the summons.

Early on during the several days it had taken the surviving Shire-folk to assemble, Bucca had returned to the body of Men and Elves and received assurances from Arvedui’s sons, as well as Galdor, that they would wait for him and the archers they hoped he’d bring them, though they would set up camp several miles away from the edge of the woods, to avoid calling the attention of spies or marauders to that place.

As Galdor had lifted Bucca down from the Elven horse, he’d promised that a messenger would be waiting near the “Twins”, to send a swift message to summon a sufficient number of riders to transport the Shire archers.

‘Sufficient number?’ Bucca had said, and the Elf lord had laughed.

‘I have every confidence in your skills of persuasion,’ Galdor had said, ‘having witnessed them on numerous occasions!’

‘But... swift message?’ Bucca had asked, and then he’d remembered the gulls, and how the Elves had read messages in the seabirds’ cries. And he’d put up a hand to interrupt Galdor’s answer, even though the fellow gave Bucca the impression that they might have stood there for days, with the hobbit asking questions and the Elf lord answering. Even when time was of the essence, as it was now, the Elves never seemed to feel hurried.

And every day, including this day, Prim had brought him word that the messenger remained where Bucca expected to meet him, and that the messenger was ‘well-hid; I don’t think a marauder or one of the Dark Hunters would be able to see him. Had Mallow not watched him settle into his hiding place, I doubt we’d’ve been able to see him, even now! But we know where he is, and so we can see him there.’

But his father, the Thorn, was speaking now, and Bucca wrenched his attention back to the matter at hand. ‘Those who are newly wed, or those expecting babes or who have nurselings, will remain here, to guard the Shire-folk in our fastnesses.’

Bucca saw the listeners exchange glances at this; it meant the path ahead would be difficult. Well, he’d known that already. But living in hiding, with fell hunters seeking after your blood, was no tray of teacakes, as one might have said in the old days before disaster fell upon the Shire. Even so, the archers who stood before him were marching to certain combat upon a battlefield whence none of the hobbits who’d marched there before them had returned. Those newly married or with small children might have some measure of safety, how ever small it might be, compared to those who marched to this war of Men and Elves and invaders. And they’d undoubtedly be fierce in fighting to protect their loved ones. 

For that reason, too, those archers who were female would remain in the hiding places of the Shire-folk, in order to defend the most vulnerable among them with guile and stealth and their own lives, if need be. Just as his own Comfrey had done. 

When the Thorn announced the time for decision, one of Marroc’s older brothers, who’d been newly wed when Tokka had marched away to the Northern lands, now stepped forward and knelt before the Thorn and Bucca, bowing his head for a moment before raising his eyes to meet the old hobbit’s gaze squarely. ‘I vow to go, to serve the King, as I am called,’ he said, then stood to his feet and raised his bow in his clenched fist. ‘To cleanse the horror from the land!’ he declared, echoing Bucca’s earlier words.

Two more of Marroc’s brothers stood forth, and then a third, and then other archers moved forward, kneeling to speak their vow to serve the King of the North-land and then standing to their feet again, a picture of determination.

Bucca knew a moment of pride, but in the same instant, he felt despair hovering in the air, as if it sought to land upon his shoulders, and the thought whispered in his heart, Do they all follow me to their deaths?

But even as he fought the dark impression, his father turned to him and placed a steadying hand on his shoulder. ‘My son,’ he murmured, and his eyes seemed to pour strength and courage into Bucca. ‘Angmar will be driven from the land.’ 

Bucca sank to his knees and bowed his head, and he felt the Thorn’s hand come to rest on his head in blessing. He seemed to hear his father say, though the words were not spoken aloud, Even at the cost of your life, my beloved son, and the lives of those who follow you, though it may be that some of you will return again to us. And whether you return to us, or no, your son, and Tokka's, will be among those who begin the long task of rebuilding and remembering. 

Thorn's hand seemed to grow momentarily heavier on Bucca's head as Bucca heard his father's final thoughts ring clearly in his mind. All hope is not yet lost. 

And somehow Bucca knew that his father was listening to the guiding Voice that sometimes spoke to him. From the teachings that he and Tokka had received from their father, beginning in their earliest years, he understood that the Thorn was speaking the Truth as it had been shown to him, even as it had been with the Lady in the stories of the Fallohides, whose Voice had guided a long-ago Thorn as he led his People over rivers and mountains, through perils and wonders, to a new land. The Stoors and the Harfoots had been similarly guided, following their own Thorns to the lands that the Great Ones, whoever they might be, had prepared to receive them.

As the Thorn’s hand fell away, Bucca looked up again to meet his father’s eyes, thinking, I will sing my part in the Song, and I will seek for the light that the darkness endeavours to hide. He saw his father smile then, as if the Thorn heard clearly the unspoken words, though he thought the smile was sad. And then his father nodded, and he reached to take his son’s arms and raised Bucca to his feet once more.

Aloud, the Thorn said only, ‘Grace go with you, my son...’ and then, looking up to sweep the Shire archers’ faces with a keen glance, he added, ‘and grace go with all of you! Our future... our hopes... our dreams... go with you.’

A cheer arose from all who were gathered there, and then the archers were turning away to embrace their loved ones, to speak their farewells and their hopes of returning once more, and finally, to speak their love though they might never meet again in this world.

And then it was time for the mustered hobbits to take up their packs, to settle their bow cases and quivers on their shoulders, and at last to follow Bucca to a hidden exit from the forest fastness and on to the Watcher who waited for them.

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Author’s note: I must admit to being influenced by Mirkwoodmaiden’s stories where Éowyn learns or practises archery. If any hobbit clan had female archers, it would be the Tooks and their predecessors. Perhaps female hobbits living in polite society in the settled Shire had little need of hunting skills; nevertheless, I find it believable that many of the hobbits, whether male or female, who lived in the wilder parts of the Green Hill country or deep in the Woody End, would have had skills used for hunting and defence.

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