Chapter 42. Attack of the White Wolves! 

Bilbo's fingers were by this time dead white, and they felt dead, into the bargain... resembling twigs of lifeless wood as the tween fumbled to cover his rapidly-freezing right hand once more. Even his left hand wasn't cooperating as it should ­– he had a heart-stopping moment when he nearly dropped the double-layered mittens as he tried to shove his exposed hand into the gap that promised shelter from the frigid air if not warmth in themselves.

'Good Tookish wool,' he muttered to himself, over and again, for no particular reason except that he heard his mother's voice repeating the phrase, quite as if she were sitting on the branch with him. 'Sorry, Mum,' he added once the mittens were on.

The tween, who had been sitting on a branch half-way up one of the taller trees in the copse when he'd spotted the approaching wolves, now took firm hold of the branch above him with his numbing-but-not-yet-completely-numb left hand and stood up on his perch. Balancing ought to have been easy but for the fact that he was so cold, and every movement required extra thought and effort, as if he were swimming through thick honey.

Taking short, panting breaths seemed to help. Pulling his muffler over his mouth and breathing through the thick wool might have been the best solution, especially as he could feel his cheeks stiffening with the cold – but though he had conveyed a warning, the hobbits trudging towards him still had no idea of what they were facing. If they had, he'd no doubt, they'd be moving as fast as possible. In any event, much faster than they were currently going.

Halloo! he shouted at the top of his voice, waving his free hand in broad sweeps.

Bungo, forging his way determinedly along their back trail, waved an arm of his own, and his faint Halloo! rang in reply.

Halloo! Bilbo shouted. Hurry! he screamed. You've not much time!

Despite the distance between them, the clear, cold air seemed to magnify and sharpen the picture spread out before his eyes. Thus, the young Baggins saw his father's nod, even saw Bungo's lips moving just before the sound of his voice reached Bilbo. Halloo! He thought his dad added, We're coming! ...but he couldn't be quite sure.

Thus, he continued to wave and shout out his message, even as the longer-legged Tooks caught up to Bungo and surrounded him, forming a protective wall around him and one of their number – Uncle Isen! Bilbo realised. All his other uncles had taken their bows out and strung them, but Isen, obviously wearied by the long walk, was employing his walking stick as the prop it was intended for and not as the ornament (or affectation, fitting in with the airs that some of the haughtier Smials Tooks were fond of putting on) he and Bungo had pretended up to this point in their sojourn at the Great Smials. They might not know the nature of the danger, but they were doing what they could with the knowledge they had.

Still, having seen the unbelievable size of these wolves, it wouldn't be enough, in Bilbo's estimation.

And so he kept shouting. Eventually, they'd be close enough to discern the words of his warning. The sooner, the better!

Hurry! the tween shouted – he bellowed – he screamed. Wolves! Wolves are on your trail! Run! Run if you can!

Watching eagerly as he was, Bilbo saw the moment his message struck the target and went home. Isen's eyes had been fixed on the ground ahead of him as he made his way over the uneven ground, but now his head jerked up. His gaze met Bilbo's, and then the tween saw his uncle's mouth open. The sound reached Bilbo, though not the exact words, but the result was gratifying. Suddenly, the entire body of hobbits began to plunge through the snow, stumbling when they broke through the ice crust, but coming on faster and obviously at the best speed they could make under the conditions facing them.

Bilbo turned to see the wolves, also unfortunately gaining ground – but swivelling his face back towards his father and uncles reassured him that at least the hobbits were hurrying at last! The wall of protection around Bungo and Isen lost some of its precision, but the Tooks managed to hold their bows ready, arrows nocked, even as the group pelted towards the promised protection of the copse, their speed constrained mainly by Bungo's relatively smaller stature and Isen's damaged leg.

The young Baggins looked in one direction and then the other, measuring the hobbits' flight and the wolves' approach. It was well past time to pull his muffler over his face, but in his agitation, all Bilbo could think of was urging them on. Hurry! he begged, sobbing in anguish. They're almost here!

So were his father and his uncles... but the stirrings of relief on Bilbo's part were ripped away by realisation as terrible white forms flowed around the trees at the far end of the copse and then began to pass beneath his refuge.

Worse, the wolves now caught sight of their prey; deep, eager, blood-chilling howls echoed in the icy air, their sound somehow paralysing in itself, freezing Bilbo in mid-yell.

Bungo stopped in his tracks, but the Tooks did not – Isen grasped at his brother-in-love's arm and hauled him into motion. Even as they plunged forward, Bilbo's other Tookish uncles bent their bows and took aim, then loosed a small fury of arrows – "small" in number, there being only seven archers. But the powerful bows thrummed in concert, and the archers' aim was true, sending their shafts into the leaders of the attacking pack. A second flight of arrows followed, and then a third.

The resulting confusion, momentary as it was, bought the harried hobbits time, for the wolves fell back under the deadly onslaught, some snapping at the shafts that had targeted them, fearsome teeth gleaming. Others snarled, and one launched himself at an injured neighbour, the two forming a raging, slashing, snapping ball that bowled over several others around them.

Yet discouragingly few of the wolves were entirely out of commission, having staggered under the assault, swayed and then fallen. These creatures, unusual as they were in terms of colour and size, also seemed uncannily intelligent in their understanding of the danger the arrows posed. Some of them successfully dodged and thus avoided running into the speeding shafts. Moreover, their thick pelts appeared to blunt the impact of the wicked hunting pyles that found their mark.

Even as they drew and shot, drew and shot, the hunted hobbits kept advancing. As they reached Bilbo's perch which was, by coincidence, the closest climbable tree to the edge of the copse, the Tooks, as of one mind, pushed Bungo and Isen to the fore. Bungo – who had likely never climbed a tree in his life! – was not at all hampered by his inexperience. Soon he reached Bilbo's sturdy branch and was hugging Bilbo and the tree together in one fervent embrace. 'My boy!' he panted. 'My brave boy!' And then he drew one hand away and tugged Bilbo's muffler up to his eyes, after which he pulled his own muffler higher. 'Such a cold spell as we're having,' he said, almost conversationally.

The inanity of it all struck the tween as hilarious, and in the midst of that desperate scene, with wolves attacking hobbits and hobbits giving battle almost immediately below them, he began to laugh, heartily but helplessly. And then Bungo's arms closed around him once more and held him securely, and he tried to smother his laughter against Bungo's shoulder... along with the tears that followed.

As he and Bungo had reached Bilbo's tree, Isen paused just long enough to boost Bungo onto the lowest branch, after which he stuck his walking stick into his quiver – resembling a giant's oversized arrow, and tipped with a bronze knob rather than a hunting pyle – and jumped for safety, blessing the fact that, thanks to Bungo, he had two serviceable arms to climb with. Lingering on the lowest branch as a rear-guard, he took out his bow and strung it, then affixed an arrow and joined the diminishing number of archers in beating off the attacking wolves, as one brother, then another, pulled himself onto that lowest branch where Isengar lingered, and then climbed higher, forming a growing flock of unlikely birds, finding places to roost in Bilbo's tree.

Isengrim, as the eldest son of the Old Took, came last, for he had herded his younger brothers and their brother in love before him as they had sprinted for the refuge of the copse. As such, he was the last to be left on the ground, shooting, and after he'd spent his last remaining arrow, he slung his bow on his arm and took hold of the lowest branch where Isengar precariously perched, out of casual reach of their attackers though still vulnerable should one or more wolves attempt a leaping grab. 

But before the older brother could swing himself off the ground, the two boldest wolves rushed in from either side.

Bilbo, still muffled in his father's embrace, stiffened at the sound of his uncle's screams. At the same time, Bungo's hold tightened. 'Don't look, don't look,' the father chanted, even as Bungo was unable to turn his own eyes away from the horror unfolding at the base of the tree. Bilbo's other Tookish uncles were already climbing down around them, perhaps intending to jump to the ground, shoot the last of their dwindling supply of arrows, to make a final stand together...

But Isen was there, on the spot as it were. He shot the arrow he held into one of the attackers at point blank, and reached over his shoulder to his quiver as if to shoot again, even as the rest of the wolves began to close in.

But no! Instead of an arrow, his hand came up brandishing the sturdy walking stick. As he dropped his bow and slipped from the branch into the midst of the fray, he raised his makeshift club above his head and brought the heavy brass knob down square on the skull of the second attacker, causing the wolf to loose its hold on Grim and shake its head, dazed if not injured by the blow. Isen swung his elegant weapon against the other wolf, the one his arrow had wounded, adding insult to injury, and that creature fell back another step, swinging its head to snarl and snap at the others that were crowding behind.

Hildigrim and Isembard were the next to reach the ground, almost falling out of the tree in their haste to come to the aid of their beleaguered brothers. 'Get him up!' Isengar shouted, moving away from the base of the tree and swinging his stick menacingly, such that it whistled as it passed through the air, causing some of the wolves to hesitate and lay back their ears.

'But...!' Bard yelled in protest, only to be cut off by the youngest brother.

'Get him up! Don't worry about me! Get Grim to safety!' gasped Isengar, twirling and swinging his improvised staff. Even as he spoke, he lashed out at the closest of the wolves, smashing the brass knob against the side of its jaw and knocking it away with a yelp. 'Go!' he added for good measure.

'Come on!' Hildigrim shouted in his own turn. He had seized one of Grim's arms and was hauling the injured hobbit into the air. Isembard hesitated for the briefest instant more, then took Grim's other arm and began to climb and help Hildi carry their brother out of reach.

'They've got him... they've got him,' Bungo whispered into his son's wool-covered curls, closing his eyes in relief. He felt Bilbo relax, but only slightly, for Grim's screams had turned to heart-rending cries and moans, and these were not the only distressing sounds in the cacophony filling the air around their saviour tree.

Some uncles were shouting at Isengar, others at Grim and his rescuers; and Isengar, still making his weapon whistle with his expert manoeuvres, the sound rising to a shriek, was also howling at the top of his voice like a creature out of nightmare. 

The wolves, meanwhile, seemed momentarily confused and unsure of how to proceed against this small but daunting prey. They didn't seem to notice the hobbit's inching movement backwards, until Isen's back touched the bole of the tree and the hobbit stilled the motion of the stick in the firmest grasp his weaker hand could manage while he pulled himself to safety with the other hand, halting on the lowest branch just long enough to grab at the next one higher and heave himself out of reach. Thus, the leaders' leaps and snapping jaws missed his woolly toes by a handspan.

'Hah! A miss is as good as a mile!' shouted Isembold, who had watched, heart in mouth, from the next-higher branch.

Isengar grabbed hold of the branch where he'd ended, closed his eyes and exhaled the tension accumulated in his body before gulping a deep breath – which he immediately coughed out again. 'Burns...' he gasped as Bold prostrated himself on his somewhat higher branch and reached out to him, peppering him with anxious questions. 'The air – it's so cold, it burns! We weren't able to run fast enough to feel it – or maybe our minds were too preoccupied – but now...'

'None of your nonsense now, little brother,' Bold said, the phrase falling as light and casual as it had in their boyhood days, and when Isen looked up, Bold ruffled the woollen hat on his head in much the same way as he'd ruffled his youngest brother's curls some decades past.

But Isen's replies were directed at Grim's rescuers, crouched up against the bole of the tree on the same sturdy lower branch where he'd found purchase. 'You've got to stop the bleeding!' Somehow, without losing his hold or his balance, he managed to shrug his pack from his shoulders. 'Shirt-sleeves...' he panted. 'Breeches... Nightshirt...' For of course, they had been escorting him to his new abode, and he had carried with him what he needed in terms of changes of clothes.

'They've got him, lad,' Bungo murmured to Bilbo from their higher perch, hardly knowing what he said.

Muffled, broken words arose from the huddled son he sheltered in his arms. 'Dad... O Dad...'

Somehow, without his conscious thought, Bungo's reassurances changed, and he began to croon words with greater power to cosset and calm the terrified tween. 'I've got you. I have got you, my lad, my precious; cleverest, bravest of boys! You're safe – and I have you now.'

For he did, at that.

***