Chapter 3. In which a journey is interrupted

As they neared the end of the rock-fall, Penny planted her feet once more, resisting Farry’s tugging. Ferdi had kept walking, arrow now fitted to the bow, looking from the rocks on one side of them to the other, but at Farry’s call he turned back.

At once Ferdi’s eyes widened, he raised the bow, he shouted, ‘Away, lad! Run!’

Time slowed to a crawl. Farry could not exactly run, not holding the ponies, for there was nowhere for them to go. He dropped the reins, preparatory to dodging between two great boulders, and then Penny tossed her head up, and then she reared in alarm as shouts rose behind them, and a part of Farry that was curiously detached recognised the fact that Ferdi’d had the presence of mind not to use his name. Men in the Shire in defiance of the King’s edict were ruffians beyond a shadow of doubt. Ruffians, if they guessed that Farry was the son of the Thain... well, they’d do unspeakable things. Farry knew this because he’d heard his father speak of it to the hobbits of the escort, when they didn’t know he was there.

He’d actually been taken by a ruffian bent on mischief, once, but the Man had not got away. Farry’s father, pursuing, had cast a well-aimed stone and brought the Man down.

All these thoughts flashed through his mind as he side-stepped. A blur of motion behind Ferdi drew Farry’s attention, but before he could shout a warning of his own a club came crashing down upon his uncle’s head. Ferdi crumpled beneath the blow, falling boneless to the ground, bow still in his grasp.

Farry gasped, and tears blurred his vision further, but he wasted not a second more, putting his head down and diving between the boulders. In seconds he could find a hidey-hole, he trusted. Hobbits were ever so good at hiding...

But he bounced off a soft and yielding surface, and iron fists took hold of his arms and he looked up over a round belly to a round face that ought to have been jolly, but that the eyes were cold and hard, and then the ruffian was hauling him, kicking and struggling, into the air, and someone was scolding.

‘...Whyn’t you keep still! They’d never have seen us!’

‘Their ponies...’

‘We can use them ponies, to carry more gold...’

‘Hush!’ said the fat man, his grip numbing Farry’s arms. He gave the young hobbit a shake that rattled his senses. ‘Be still, you!’

The others hushed. Farry, hanging quiet now, blinking, counted five of them. One muscular fellow had grabbed the ponies’ reins and was jerking hard – Penny fought him, and he clubbed her between the ears with a beefy fist, making her stagger. Dapple’s ears were laid back, but she was by nature a calm beast, and recognised the authority in the ruffian’s grip.

‘I thought I told you to keep quiet and still and out of sight,’ the fat man said coldly, sweeping the band with a glare. ‘They were wary, but they’d not have seen us or known we were there, and now...’

‘This’un’s nearly done for,’ whined the scrawniest of the band, nudging Ferdi with his toe. ‘We’ll bury him and no one will be the wiser.’

‘Bury them both,’ another said, but the youngest of the ruffians had a troubled look and countered, looking at Farry, ‘Have pity! He’s but a little child...!’

‘We’ll have to bury them both,’ the fat man said, ‘and in a way that looks like it was an accident! You ruddy fools! They’ll be missed, and folk will come looking for them, and if they don’t find them they might spread out the search and find us! No, it must look like an accident. They’ll be found here along the trail, where they’re supposed to be...’ He broke off, eying the hillside, and gave a nod of grim satisfaction. ‘We’ll just bash this one’s head in as well, and push a few more rocks down on them, as if they were caught in another fall. Wouldn’t take much to pry a few more of those large ones there loose.’

‘The ponies too?’ the brawny man said. ‘That would be a pity. We could use them, and be able to move faster and bring more gold out on their backs than we could carry on our own.’

The fat man considered, then nodded. ‘It’s not unlikely that the ponies would throw their riders in a panic, if the hillside came down,’ he said. ‘It would be thought that they’d run away, and would find their way home eventually. And by the time they haven't, and someone realises, we’ll be out of the Shire and long gone.’ He surveyed the track. ‘But the bodies must be easily found. Bury that one head-down, if he’s still breathing, but leave his legs sticking out for the searchers to find. Oh! And unstring his bow and hang it where it ought to be, and put the arrow back in the quiver. The searchers will find him, and they’ll say that he never saw the danger before it swallowed him. “He died a natural death, so he did, poor unsuspecting fellow”.’

One of the ruffians guffawed, and another wiped at his nose with his sleeve, but the youngest of them looked sick at the prospect. He started to protest, as a matter of fact, but was quelled by the fat man’s stare.

The fat man went on. ‘And this one...’ His hands squeezed tighter on Farry and then set him on the ground. One hand came free and gestured to the club-wielder, who surrendered his weapon.

Farry stared upwards, into the face of death, as the fat man raised the club. ‘Stand still now, little one,’ the man said in a pleasant tone. He shifted his bruising grip to Farry’s shoulder and took aim with the club. ‘We’ll make it quick. You won’t feel a thing, if you just stand still and take it like a man.’