Chapter 1. Thorn: They'd Not Heard of the King

T.A. 1974, winter: End of the North-kingdom

The sweating hobbit rested the axe a moment in order to wipe at his face. Despite the heat the exercise of chopping had afforded, he shivered in the brief respite as icy fingers of wind plucked at him. Cold it was, colder than any winter he remembered. It would be good to shoulder an armload of firewood and return to the comfort of the cosy smial. He blessed the day his sons would be old enough to take over the chore.

More imaginative than most, he resisted the chill by resting his mind on thoughts of summer’s heat. Odd, that a few short months ago he’d fallen in the fields, stricken by the Sun as he followed the plough ponies. The past year had been noted for its extremes of weather: an unusually hot and dry spring followed by a rainy summer, a long and dry harvest time filled with feasting and farewells (he did not let himself dwell on the farewells) and then this bitter snowy cold.

Shouldering the axe once more, with just enough attention to keep from chopping a foot (feeling rather wooden as it was, in this cold), he thought of that day, last spring, when the first odd dream—he shied from calling it premonition—came to him. Fever dream is all it was, brought on by Sun’s heat. Certainly no premonition, for his brother Tokka had been alive and well and working the next field over at the time...

He pulled the plough ponies to a stop and wiped his face. He took the drinking skin from his belt and gulped some of the lukewarm water it contained. It did little to satisfy his thirst, however. He felt as if his tongue might cleave to the roof of his mouth... He shook his head to dispel the fancy and clucked to the ponies. They leaned into their collars and he steadied the plough as it began to turn over the rich soil of the Marish once more.

It had been an unusually warm day in Spring, the time for ploughing and planting, for seeding and hoping...

He thought about hope, and shivered as another gust of wind shook him, flinging icy particles of stinging snow into his face. Pausing in his chopping, he pulled the muffler as high as it would go without covering his eyes, and pulled the knitted cap down nearly to meet it. Though he tried to escape to thoughts of summer’s heat, the chill persisted and grew into a steady ache.

His brother and cousins had been gone too long, too long without a message. Gone to support the King in a distant conflict, as distant as the stuff of old tales, and yet they had not returned, nor sent word. No King’s messenger had come down the old road from Norbury in weeks... months... had it been that long? The winter weather was not enough to explain it, for King’s messengers travelled regardless of weather.

Resolutely he turned his thoughts back to Sun, and heat.

He squinted at the Sun, her face in the sky hard and unfeeling, no loving caress but a burning wrath upon the land below. His legs were turning to water; he staggered after the ponies. Before he could pull them to a stop he fell, and the lines he’d wrapped about himself dragged him along behind the plough before the ponies stopped of their own accord. He tried ineffectually to rise, managed only to roll himself on his side, blinking at the merciless Sun. He thought of the Lady of the ancient tales, who’d helped the Fallohides before they’d made the Crossing and settled in Western lands. ‘Mercy,’ he whispered.

Of a wonder a shadow fell upon him as a wisp of cloud was drawn across the scowling face of the Sun, and he closed his eyes in relief... He thirsted, and his breath came gasping...

***

He thirsted, and his breath came gasping despite the freezing wind that swept over that charnel plain. He cradled Marroc’s head in his lap, though his cousin was dead, eyes open and staring, a great gaping wound in the throat, the lingering warmth of life quickly stolen away by winter’s chill. He was the last of the Shirefolk, among the last of a dwindling number of Kingsmen. Kingsmen. He wanted to laugh at the thought of Halflings counted as Men amongst the soldiers of King Arvedui. But they had proven their stature, with their sturdy bows and stout hearts.

He wondered dully if the King yet lived. He’d seen Borogil of the King’s guard riding over the windswept North Downs  to the spot where the King’s banner had last waved, leading the King’s horse and a few others, all swift, all fresh and ready to run. Had the King escaped in the final charge? The enemy had overrun the defenders, shrieking and bellowing, the fearsome Black King stalking forward in their midst. Men had thrown down their weapons in despair, falling witless to the snowy ground, hewn by cruel steel until the field glowed more red than white under the icy glare of noonday Sun.

The Halflings had held their ground to the end, shooting until their arrows were spent, fighting desperately with their short swords against adversaries with far longer reach.

Tokka had held back his last arrow, watching the advance of the Black King as Marroc and his cousins defended him with shield and body. He held his breath as the fearsome Witch-king of Angmar advanced, as unconcerned as if it were a mere leisurely stroll through the garden. A few steps more...

The hobbit blew the frost from his fingertips, sighted, drew back the string, let fly. The arrow flew true, and his hopes blazed high, only to be extinguished as the Witch-king raised a gauntleted hand. The arrow kindled and crumbled, impacting the black-clad breast with a sifting of ash and no more. Tokka’s bow shattered in his hand, the string snapping against his cheek, a line of burning pain. He drew his sword and stepped forward to join his cousin Marroc as the soldiers of Angmar broke over them...

He wondered for a moment what his twin was doing at that moment. Was Bucca sitting by the hearth, mending harness, planning for the coming season when he’d be once again out in the fields, turning over the rich soil a long-ago King had granted the Halflings? With Arvedui vanquished, would the ravening hordes turn their faces southwards, overrunning the peaceful Shirefolk, reducing their land to blood and ruin, like the North Downs where their kinsmen now laid down their lives?

He was the last of the Shirefolk, amongst a dwindling number of Kingsmen. He heard the death-cry of yet another as the dark forces moved across the battlefield, dispatching the wounded with no more compassion than they might swat an insect. It would suit them to leave the wounded to freeze slowly to death under an impotent Sun that gave light but no life, no warmth; but they must move on, to hunt King Arvedui, and did not care to leave any living behind them, who might bind up their wounds and fight another day.

A shadow fell on the snow before him, blotting the heatless Sun, and Tokka looked up wearily, into the grinning face of a Man. Better to end it now than risk being taken alive, he thought. He’d heard a hissing thought in his head as his arrow crumbled to ash, a cold promise of pain and suffering to come, colder than the icy wind that swept the plain. He had no desire to be borne living to the dungeons of Angmar. Hopefully this Man was as stupid as he looked.

 ‘So,’ he said, his breath coming in little puffs of steam. ‘What are you waiting for? Afraid of a little Halfling, are you?’

The Man sneered and lowered his sword. ‘Why should I fear you?’ he said. ‘You’re for the dungeons. You’ll soon enough be singing a different tune.’

With a silent apology to Marroc for disturbing his final rest, Tokka pushed himself suddenly to his feet, rolling the body of his cousin off his lap. He brought up his own short sword, thrusting for the Man’s abdomen. Startled, the Man countered, not meeting the resistance he expected, for Tokka dropped his guard so that the long blade could do its work unhampered...

***

A/N The title is taken from Fellowship of the Ring, by J.R.R. Tolkien: Prologue, "Of the Ordering of the Shire"

Note to readers: The reason for the revision ought to be obvious, for those who read the first version, but if not, suffice it to say that I overlooked the time-clues in my preliminary research. The battle on the North-downs in which the North-kingdom was lost occurred before the end of winter, the King met his end sometime in March, and winter lasted longer than usual that year. Thus saith the appendix. Hopefully the rewrite works.