Chapter 6: In the Grip of Fear

Sam sighed and sank down onto the rock beneath him when Legolas finally called a halt.  Sweat immediately popped out of every pore in his skin.  Sam ignored it; it happened every time they stopped.  The chill wind would eventually cool him enough to stop his perspiration.  The halt would not be a long one and his legs needed all the rest they could get.  He had been waiting for Legolas to say something for the past half-hour, and a very long half-hour it had seemed, too.

It was late in the afternoon on the second day since the flood, and Sam and Legolas were in the midst of walking a difficult path.  There was no proper shore in this part of the river.  Legolas said that one had probably existed a few days ago, but the flood had temporarily swallowed it.  In most places the water was contained by piles of large stones that seemed to have fallen off the cliff faces.  The gorge was narrower here, and there was little dry ground between the cliffs and the river.

With no shore to walk, Sam and Legolas were required to navigate their way across slabs of fallen rock.  The going was slow.  The stones hadn’t been weathered by the elements much, and they didn’t fit together very well.  Sam had learned hours ago that he had to look twice before he stepped, and then step carefully.  The rocks were liable to shift or tilt when weight was put on the wrong places.  Some boulders were bigger than the rest, with six-foot drops from top to bottom.  Most of those drops were half-full of icy river water.  Legolas was always there to grasp Sam’s right hand as he leapt across them.  Neither of them wanted to endure another dunking.

Their injuries had slowed their progress even further.  First, there was Sam’s sprained wrist.  Stepping on the stones was like performing a balancing act, and Sam was afraid of falling.  If he stumbled, he would reflexively raise his hands to catch himself… and take the brunt of the impact exactly where it would do the most damage.  In the beginning he had kept his fears to himself and simply stepped from stone to stone as gingerly as possible, but Legolas was very observant.  The moment he’d realized what Sam was doing and why, he had stayed close to Sam and insisted on being the first to try every new foothold.  Sam had tried to protest – Legolas still had that gash on his thigh, after all – but the Elf was adamant.

Sam knew the cut was still a problem.  He could see a dark, spreading stain on Legolas’ garments.  The stitches he had made weren’t holding as well as he would have liked and the wound was oozing.  It was no wonder, really, for Legolas couldn’t help disturbing it as they moved over the boulders.  Legolas never said that he felt unwell, but he didn’t try to suppress the occasional pained grimace.  Sam understood how he felt, because he was hurting all over, too.  It was as if he had been beaten from head to foot with the biggest hickory stick in the Shire.  Legolas had been right about Sam’s bruises: it had taken two days, but they were finally blooming in spectacular fashion.  Sam winced to think how long it might take for the worst of them to fade.

Sam’s stomach rumbled again.  He had eaten nothing since lunch, but he was determined to ignore the gnawing hunger inside him.  If Legolas could soldier on with nary a vocal complaint about bruises or bleeding, then he could surely refrain from mentioning food.

“Have a bit of cheese, Sam,” Legolas said suddenly.  “You must be hungry by now; you are a hobbit, after all.”

“I’ll be all right, thank you,” said Sam.  He did not need to be coddled the whole way back to the Fellowship.  Legolas seemed determined to make sure Sam was comfortable even if he never gave any thought to himself, but Sam was equally determined to see that Legolas didn’t neglect himself, and he didn’t want the Elf to think that he couldn’t endure a little hardship, too.

Sam’s journey upstream hadn’t been all bad – rocks, an aching body, and worrying over Frodo notwithstanding – and that was because he was traveling with Legolas.  Even now he felt a flutter of excitement in his belly when he thought about it.  For as long as he could remember he had wanted to see Elves.  Bilbo’s stories had fueled his imagination when he was a lad, and he’d held onto those dreams as he aged.  Since leaving the Shire, Sam’s wishes had been more than fulfilled.  He had seen dozens upon dozens of Elves now, most of them in Rivendell.  Beautiful and strange, young and old at the same time, they were everything he’d hoped for and more.  The one thing Sam had never expected was to actually know one of them.  Every time he’d crossed paths with an Elf, he’d tripped over his tongue.  Lord Elrond, Lord Glorfindel, and the Lady Arwen had been especially kind and polite, but Sam felt that he was worlds removed from them.  Such wisdom and nobility was in the depths of their eyes, and he was just a gardener who hadn’t ever wanted to be anything more.  He could scarcely remember how he had responded when they had spoken to him, or if he had even been able to speak at all.

And then Sam had learned that an Elf was to travel with them to Mordor.  He had felt many different emotions at the news: excitement, anxiety, and relief when he heard that it was not to be Glorfindel.  Sam thought much of the Elf-lord – he had been instrumental in getting Frodo to Rivendell in time to be saved – but he was simply too great for a simple hobbit to feel comfortable with.  What he had gotten instead of Glorfindel was Legolas.

At first Sam had been just as dumbstruck around Legolas as he’d been with every other Elf.  Like all of his kind, Legolas was tall, fair, and unconsciously graceful.  He clearly knew what he was about with his weapons, and Sam had begun wondering what it would be like to see an Elf fight; after all, they were famous throughout Middle-earth for their skills in battle.  In these ways Legolas was much like the Elves of Rivendell, and for several days Sam had been unable to say more than two words together to him, but eventually his shyness began to fade.  Legolas was friendly and light-hearted, and he smiled often.  One day Legolas burst out laughing after Pippin told a joke, and at that moment, Sam was sure he really liked the Elf.  At night he would sometimes tell stories or sing for the Fellowship, and the darkness would seem a little less close.  Sam had never been able to bring himself to ask Legolas to sing – not even since the flood – but he did love to hear it.

Time spent in close company with an Elf was enough to keep Sam’s spirits up even when his limbs sighed with pain and weariness.  After waking up in the cave that glorious morning to discover that he was still alive, Sam had barely been able to keep silent around Legolas.  He blushed when he thought of all the chatter he had spouted on that first day, but he had felt strangely bold and energized.  It had taken a swim through a nightmare to finally loosen his tongue.  Sam couldn’t have been gladder that the loosening had happened, for now Legolas was a friend in truth as well as in name.  Mellon – that was the Elvish word for friend.  Sam had already learned several words from Legolas, and he was looking forward to practicing with Frodo when they were reunited.

Neither Sam nor Legolas had been talking very much that day, though.  Clambering over the rocks required all of Sam’s concentration, and Legolas divided his mind between finding a safe path and lending Sam his aid.  When Legolas wasn’t holding out a hand for Sam to grasp, he was peering around the gorge with a grim expression.  There were no trees in that lonely, narrow part of the river, although there were some atop the cliffs, far overhead.  Legolas said he would have a much clearer warning of trouble if he were walking among the trees, where their voices were loud, rather than straining to catch whispers from a distance.  Sam didn’t think he would have felt like saying much even if he were walking on level ground.  Legolas’ growing unease was beginning to rub off on him.

It had started that morning, just after Sam woke Legolas.  He had insisted on taking one of the watches though Legolas had done his best to dissuade him.  No sooner had the Elf stood up and begun folding his blanket than he paused to gaze upriver, the blanket forgotten in his hands.  For a long moment he stood immobile, seeing and hearing things that were beyond Sam’s senses.  Sam questioned Legolas only when he moved again, and Legolas was reluctant to answer.  He said the forest had no bad tidings to tell, but he felt the need to be watchful.  He seemed frustrated by the lack of evidence to support his intuition.  For his part, Sam needed no evidence to strengthen his trust in Legolas.  If he felt uneasy, then there was probably a reason.  But just because danger was near didn’t mean they had to meet up with it.  Perhaps the Men would decide to turn away from the gorge.  Perhaps they had already found a way up the cliffs and had climbed out to walk on the ground far above.  As long as he didn’t encounter the band of Men – or anyone other than the rest of the Fellowship – Sam was content.

“You are certain that you do not need to eat?” Legolas repeated disbelievingly.  “If I have learned one thing on this Quest, it is that hobbits are voracious creatures.”  He smiled to show that he did not mean it as an insult.

“We are… what you said,” said Sam, “but we can go without if we must.  And the less we eat now, the more there’ll be at supper.”

“Then if you are ready, I think we should keep moving.  I dislike being stranded out on these rocks.  There is nowhere to hide but down in one of these water-filled drop-offs.  I do not relish the thought of having to climb back out again.”

That was as close to mentioning his injuries as Legolas would come, Sam knew, but it wasn’t really that which had caught his attention.  “Is there anything we need to hide from?” he asked carefully.

Legolas crossed his arms.  If he had been a hobbit, Sam would have said he was hugging himself.  “Not yet,” he said, “but I do not like being so exposed when anything at all may be heading our way.  We may need shelter in the future, but I do not know.  I do not know!”

He is ill at ease, thought Sam.  His stomach rumbled again.  It made him feel queasy.  “Then let’s go,” he said.  “Maybe just around the next bend, we’ll come to the end of this!”

They soon found that while the rocks didn’t vanish at the next bend in the river, their end did come into view.  Less than a quarter of a mile from where he stood, Sam could see the jagged slabs of stone taper off into scatterings of larger, widely scattered boulders.  Here and there a tall evergreen grew, and a pebbled shore lay on the left of the water’s edge.  Sam nearly sighed in relief when he saw it, but the feeling didn’t last.  It could still take them nearly an hour to cross what remained.

To keep his mind off the distance, Sam concentrated closely on every step he took.  There wasn’t anything else that he really could do; he had to watch his feet, or an unwary step would drop him into a water-filled gap.  He pushed his growing weariness to the back of his mind and focused on the task at hand.  One step at a time, Samwise, and each one’s bringing you closer to Mr. Frodo.

Legolas held out one hand, and Sam reflexively reached for it before he realized that Legolas was making a sign that meant “stop”.  He said nothing, but his eyes asked Sam for silence.  Then he turned to look upstream.  Sam trained his eyes in the same direction, hoping to see whatever it was that had caught Legolas’ attention, but he saw nothing except more water, more boulders, and scraggly branches waving in the cold wind.  He estimated they were less than fifty hobbit-paces from the end of the rocks.  He would be very glad to leave the rock-field behind.

Legolas turned back to Sam.  His eyes were brighter than usual, lit by a spark from within, but a spark of what, Sam could not tell.

“The Men are near.”

Sam’s pulse skipped.  “How do you know?”

“The trees ahead are uneasy.  There are intruders among them.”

For the hundredth time that day, Sam wondered how Legolas could understand trees at all – especially dormant trees – but it didn’t seem like the right time to ask.

“I would have had more warning if we had been among them,” Legolas added peevishly.  “They would have whispered their news ahead for me.  Either I have been unable to hear it, or the trees up above us are newly aware of it.”

“But you’ve heard it now,” Sam said soothingly, although he could have used a little soothing himself.  Men!  He had been hoping they had decided to go another way.

“It is too soon to be crossing paths with them.  They must be moving faster than we are.”  Legolas frowned.  “They must be moving very fast.  And they have dogs with them.”

Sam’s eyes widened.  “Dogs?”

“At least two.  I heard barking.”

Sam turned his head and cupped one hand behind each ear.  For a long moment he listened, but the noise of the river was the only sound he could detect.  “I don’t hear them,” he admitted.

“I think you will soon.  I do not like this at all.  That these travelers should have dogs….”

“They could be hunting dogs.”

“They undoubtedly are,” Legolas said grimly.  “The question is: what are they hunting?”

Sam felt a chill.  There was no mistaking what Legolas meant by that.  “But we’re downwind of them.  How could they smell us?”

“The wind is our enemy.  In this gorge, an errant gust may carry our scent anywhere.”

Just such a gust rose up at that moment, blasting Sam’s cloak flat against his body.  He shivered and shied away, imagining that puff of air wafting upstream to the nose of a slavering mastiff.

“We must get off of these rocks as quickly as possible.”  There was no mistaking Legolas’ urgency.  He stepped forward onto another rock and held out a hand for Sam.

There was little caution in their steps this time.  Legolas went first as before, but he no longer allowed Sam as much time as he wanted, and Sam found himself being hoisted over the larger gaps as often as he was jumping over them.  Legolas’ arm never wavered – his grip seemed far more solid than the shifting stones beneath Sam’s feet – but Sam didn’t like taking such a hard pace.  Legolas barely left him enough time to find his footing in one place before he had to leap to another, and it made him feel terribly off-balance.  The ever-present feeling that he was about to fall did nothing to quell the butterflies in his stomach.  Sam was so certain that he was going to take a spill that he goggled in surprise when he suddenly stepped off a stone onto hard earth.  They had come to the end of the rocks, and they had done it very quickly.  Legolas gave Sam no chance to wonder at their speed; he started forward immediately, and Sam hurried to catch up with him.

“I am sorry,” said the Elf.  “You could not have enjoyed that very much.”

Sam made a noncommittal sound.  “Hmm.  It’s good to be on proper ground again.”  His stomach and legs still felt shaky.

“Yes,” Legolas said absently, sweeping his eyes along the cliff to their left.

Sam was about to ask whether Legolas was looking for a way up when a distant sound caught his ear.  At first he thought his ears were playing tricks on him, but then he heard it again.  His eyes widened when he realized what it was: a dog’s bark.

“You hear them?”

Sam nodded.  “For a minute I thought… since you said….”

Legolas shook his head.  “Your ears do not deceive you.  I hear them too, though they do not bark often.”

Sam’s shiver had nothing to do with the cold.  It had been bad enough knowing that Legolas could hear the dogs, but hearing them himself was worse.  Legolas had very sharp senses; the creatures could have still been a mile off when he had first heard the barking, for all Sam knew.  But he knew something of the range of his own hearing, and it wasn’t nearly so long as that.

Sam thought back to what Legolas had told him in the cave – that the Men had had an unwholesome smell.  He put his nose to the breeze – they were still downwind of the Men, for all that the wind gusted – but he could detect no odor other than wet earth.  “Can you smell them yet, sir?” he asked.  It was a measure of his unease that he slipped back into his old pattern of speech; Legolas had asked him to stop using the honorific.

“No,” said Legolas, who did not seem to have noticed Sam’s slip.  “They are much too far for that.  My nose is not as keen as my eyes or ears, and I cannot track by scent.  I believe I was only able to detect an odor at their campsite because it was strong and the Men had lingered there.”  He frowned as he looked upstream, seeming uncertain.

“Are they in the canyon with us?” Sam asked.  “They could be on top, and –”

“They are in the gorge,” Legolas said flatly, “and they are coming our way.”

“We could hide,” said Sam.  “Maybe the dogs won’t smell us.”  One look at the iron set of Legolas’ jaw was enough to tell him what the Elf thought of the chance of that.  The butterflies in his stomach flapped harder.  He wondered what they should do, and why they were continuing to walk upriver as if there were nothing at all coming at them from the other direction.

“We could try to conceal ourselves,” Legolas murmured to himself, “or we could meet them head-on.  They would not expect that.  If we behave as if we have nothing to hide… and we still do not know….”

Whatever it was that they didn’t know, Legolas didn’t say.  At that very moment a sharp baying sounded from upriver, closer than Sam had expected.  His stomach flopped like a freshly-caught fish.

Legolas stopped in his tracks and made a noise that was almost a hiss.  “They have caught our scent.  It is too soon.  They have caught me unaware!”

Sam felt the first rush of real fright at Legolas’ words.  He didn’t wonder how Legolas knew that it was them the dogs had smelled; his voice was filled with such conviction that it was impossible not to believe him.  “What do we do?” he asked.  “Should we go back?”

“Nay,” said Legolas.  “Now that the dogs have wind of us, they will pursue us until we are found.  We cannot hope to outrun them on the treacherous path we just left behind.”

“Up a tree, then!”

“We will be tracked to the tree – and we will be trapped there.”

“But we can’t be found!” Sam cried.  “We can’t let anyone know about us, about Mr. Frodo!”  He looked wildly about, searching for an escape route.  He pointed at the cliff to their left with sudden inspiration.  “We could look for a way up!”

“Unless our luck suddenly changes, we will not find an easy way.  I have been looking since we first came ashore, and I have seen nothing I dared to try, not while carrying you.  If I climbed here I would have to bear you, and the going would be slow.  We would doubtless be seen.”

Panic welled up within Sam.  No way out! he thought savagely.  You’re stuck here nice and tight, like an old badger cornered in his hole.

He had to think of something.  If these Men were looking for the Fellowship as Legolas guessed, then they would be suspicious of any travelers that they found – especially folk like Sam.  Elves were likely common enough in this part of Middle-earth, but hobbits weren’t.  Gandalf had made it very plain that Sauron knew about Shire-folk now, and that one of them had his Ring.  Sam was sure that anyone looking for the Fellowship under Sauron’s orders would have been carefully instructed to watch for halflings.  If he were found, could Frodo be traced back to him?

An overpowering dread swept over Sam when he thought of his being used to find his master.  He wouldn’t tell the Enemy anything no matter what they did – he would not give Frodo away! – but he might not need his tongue for Sauron to learn what he wanted to know.  It certainly seemed that Sauron knew which hobbit carried the Ring; ‘Baggins’ had been a dangerous name even in Bree.  Who knew what other names had been connected with it by now?  Perhaps Sauron was just as aware of ‘Gamgee’ as he was of ‘Baggins’.  If the Men found him, if they discovered his name – that might be enough for them by itself.

Sam desperately looked around, searching for somewhere to hide.  The rocks behind him were treacherous to navigate and would be difficult, not to mention dangerous, to try and hide amongst.  Besides, Legolas thought the dogs would find them wherever they tried to ensconce themselves; being found down in a puddle of water between two rocks would look more suspicious than anything.  There was nowhere to escape to.  The cliffs walled them in on one side, while the river….

Sam froze as an idea seized upon his brain.  They could swim the river!  It was high, yes, but Legolas had done it once before, and there were no rapids here.  Surely trying some escape route, even a dangerous one, was better than simply waiting in the mousetrap for the gate to come snapping down.  The prospect of getting back into the icy water terrified Sam down to his toes, but he could not bear the thought of betraying Frodo.

“The river,” said Sam, shuddering as the words passed his lips. 

“What?” Legolas said sharply.

“We can cross the river,” Sam explained, not looking at Legolas.  “Or you can do it, anyway.  I can hold on to you, and we won’t have to be in it so long this time.  I can manage.”

A look of incredulity spread across Legolas’ face.  “Sam – ”

“It’s better than being captured!  It’s got to be better!  I won’t let Mr. Frodo be caught because of me, I won’t!”

Legolas knelt to look Sam in the eye.  “There is no need for such desperation yet,” he said quietly.  “We do not yet know that these Men mean to harm us.”

“But you’ve been saying all along…!”

Legolas averted his gaze.  “I have been speculating - fueled by the misgivings of my heart, which I learned long ago not to discount.”

“And I’ve learned enough about Elves to know that their instincts ought not to be ignored!” Sam said fiercely.  Why was Legolas dismissing every idea that he came up with?  They had to get away somehow; there was nothing else to be done.  “These Men are bad news, sure as eggs is eggs.  You know it in here” – he augured one finger into Legolas’ chest – “and I believe you.”

Legolas seemed to struggle with himself before answering.  “Do I think they are trouble?  Yes.  But I do not know how much trouble, and without knowing that, I cannot consent to trying the river again.  There are many ill-intentioned Men in the world, and they are not all looking for us.”

Sam stared at Legolas.  “Yesterday morning you convinced me well enough that they were looking for us!”

“Possibly they are, but I am not willing to stake our lives on it.  Are you?”

“We’re not staking our lives!” cried Sam, fighting to keep his voice low.  “You got us out last time, and we were taken by surprise then.  You can do it again!”

Legolas smiled bitterly.  “Your confidence warms my heart, mellon nin, but it cannot strengthen my body.  Do you remember the power of the water?  The river is high and its speed has not slowed.  The truth is that we were more than fortunate to escape alive last time.  Now I am tired and wounded.  I fear that for me, the choice would have to be between the river and death before I tried to swim it again, especially while bearing you.”

“Better to be dead than for Mr. Frodo to fail!” Sam said passionately.

“I agree the Quest is of far greater importance than either of us, but I will not risk throwing your life away – our lives away – on a group of Men that we have never met.  You are not as disposable as you think; Frodo needs you with him on his journey.  And if we should perish in the river, who will warn Mithrandir about the Men?  There will be no one to tell him.”

Frustration heated Sam’s face.  No matter what Legolas said, he was sure it would be better to at least try to get away than to take their chances with the Men.

“It seems that all our choices are ill,” sighed Legolas.  “Whatever we decide, we may come to rue it.”

A dog suddenly howled, much closer this time.  Sam’s pulse quickened.  Time was running out!

Legolas hissed again.  “It seems our choice has been made for us!  They are very close now.  If we try to swim the river, we will be seen.  Better to hide than to throw ourselves before their eyes.”  He frowned upriver.  “There is one last thing we can try.  Wait here.  I will return directly.”  And with that, he turned on his heel and dashed down the path.

Sam opened his mouth to object, but Legolas was already gone, and the only sound that escaped him was a croak.  Perhaps it was just as well; it wouldn’t do to tell the Men exactly where he was by shouting.

Sam only had a minute to wonder what Legolas was up to before the Elf came running back.  “I laid a false trail for them,” he said.  “The dogs have scented us, but only on the wind.  I did not want our first scent upon the ground to appear right in front of our hiding place.  If they think we are ahead of them, they might pass us by.”  Sam could only nod in agreement; he couldn’t squeeze his voice out of his painfully tight throat.  His body felt heavier than usual.

Legolas gently took Sam’s arm.  “There is a fissure in the cliff nearby.  We will conceal ourselves there.”

Sam allowed himself to be steered toward the crack, some thirty feet away.  Near the entrance it was wide enough for both of them to stand abreast, but it narrowed as it delved further into the cliffside.  Legolas motioned Sam in first and then followed after.

The interior of the crevice was dim, and Legolas blocked a good deal of the rest of the afternoon light.  Sam couldn’t see much except Legolas in front of him.  They had moved in far enough that the crack was little wider than Legolas’ shoulders.  Sam’s leaned his cheek against the cold stone of the cliff, fighting the hopelessness that threatened to consume him.

Legolas turned sideways and looked down at him.  A strange look came over the Elf’s face, and suddenly he reached out with one hand to clasp Sam’s shoulder.  “Whatever happens now, at least we are together,” he said quietly.  “And I promise you this: I will not willingly leave your side while I still draw breath.”

“Nor I yours,” Sam said hoarsely.

Legolas smiled, but Sam thought he looked sad.  “Be calm, if you can.  If the Men discover us, we must not let them see our fear, or they will think we have something to hide.”

Our fear.  Sam wouldn’t have thought that such an admission from Legolas would ever have made him feel better, but it did.  He drew a deep breath, set his feet, and nodded.  “Aye.”

“We must not let them know that we are part of a larger group.  Our story is that we two are traveling to Imladris.”

“And we’re hiding why?”

“Because these are dark times, and one must always be cautious on lesser-traveled roads.  It is truth enough.”

“What about our names?” said Sam.  “What if they’ve heard of them?”

“Do you think you can remember assumed names?” Legolas asked uncertainly.  “If either of us made a mistake in front of these Men – gave one name when they had already heard another – it could be disastrous.”

Sam hesitated.  He was still thinking of ‘Baggins’ and ‘Gamgee’, and he hated the thought of his very name sealing Frodo’s doom.  He thought it unlikely that the Enemy knew Legolas, Boromir, or Gimli had anything at all to do with the Ring, and he told Legolas as much.  “Maybe your name is still safe to use.  If you can just remember to call me Underhill – Sam Underhill – then I think that will do.  I really don’t know if I can memorize a new name for you, not when I don’t speak Elvish.”

“I can remember ‘Underhill’,” said Legolas.  “Aragorn has told me the full tale of your travels, including this alias.  And as much as I would rather not give my true name, we may have to take a chance on ‘Legolas’.  Thranduilion is another matter; a learned Man will recognize it.  Let me give a surname for myself if one is insisted upon.”  He turned his head, and Sam could tell he was listening.  “They draw near,” Legolas said, speaking very softly.  “Let me speak for both of us if we are found.”

Sam nodded.  His chest felt tight.  He closed his eyes and tried to think of calming things, things from home – from the Shire.  Dew on the daylilies.  The smell of hay at harvest.  A fire and a good pipe while the snow falls outside, and a warm bed after.

Presently Sam heard another dog’s bark – close, this time.  Very close.  Sam had no doubt that the creature had finally picked up their trail on the ground.  Legolas silently eased one of his knives in its sheath.

They waited.  Sam couldn’t tell how quickly time was passing.  Mushrooms and green onions cooked in butter.  He wondered if Legolas could hear his heartbeat.  It certainly seemed loud to him.

He heard the steady tromping of booted feet.

Making iced cream in my gaffer’s garden.  Sunshine on the willows by the brook.  His every nerve was on fire; he could feel the hairs on the back of his neck stir when a breath of air wafted through the crack.

A dark shape moved in front of the little light Sam could see around Legolas.  The Elf’s back was as stiff as a plank.

Sam’s heart was a kettledrum.  Running my fingers through freshly-turned earth!  Oh, save me, Mr. Frodo!

One dark shape passed, and another, and another.  Legolas could have been carved from granite for all he seemed to breathe.  Sam remained utterly still behind him, willing the Men to keep moving.

More shapes passed.  Sam tried to count them, but he had been so startled by their appearance that he hadn’t started the count until two or three had gone by.  The creak of leather and the scrape of feet on gravel seemed loud, even with the ever-present noise of the river in the background.  Occasionally something metallic would clink.

The last time Sam had been this frightened had been on Weathertop.  These Men were no Black Riders, but to Sam’s mind they were no less dangerous than the Ringwraiths had been.  And yet… they were passing the crevice by.  None of the shadows so much as paused, and a spark of hope kindled itself in Sam’s heart despite his sickening dread.  There couldn’t be many more of the Men, and they were relying on their dogs to sniff out the trail.  Perhaps their luck was finally turning.  The Men could be far downstream before they realized that they had lost their quarry, if indeed they ever….

The little light remaining in the crevice dimmed.  Boots crunched on the path outside, loud in the silence.  Legolas’ hand tightened on the hilt of his knife.

One of the shadows had stopped.  Sam felt his heart stop with it.

“Well,” said a voice, “what have we here?”