A/N: One last cliffhanger, for the Birthday Person, but this *is* the last of those things in this story, I promise.

Chapter 30. In which a private vengeance is interrupted

The very earth had shaken beneath them, and Farry and the young ruffian had clung to one another, and Farry had listened to the ponies shrieking their fear as the shallow cave of the “travellers’ rest” danced about them.

He’d expected to be deafened, for he’d heard black powder set off, in the past, when his father had taken him to watch the engineers at their diggings. But there was no boom, no sound* of a blast at all, and he wondered... perhaps this was one of those earth-shakes that Gimli had told about, at tea in the great room, on an earlier visit. Perhaps the fat man and his horrible brother had not yet reached the upper storehole. Perhaps the explosion was yet to come!

The thoughts kept tumbling over in Farry’s head, and he couldn’t stop them, nor could he seem to control his body, which kept on shaking after the ground stopped. Perhaps the earth-shake had brought down the hillside, and they were trapped in this little shallow cave, with limited air, and they’d suffocate, he and the man and the ponies. Or worse, perhaps the upper storehole was buried, and the frustrated ruffians would return here, to take out their disappointment on Farry...

There was a pattering as of rain, and the young ruffian got up from Farry’s side and left him. Farry kept the blindfold in place, and did not try to push the gag out of his mouth, to call a question, for fear of the fat man’s returning—or worse, Red’s. And so he did not see what the young ruffian saw: little pebbles, pieces of the hilltop, falling outside the mouth of the travellers’ rest, falling as a rain of rock and debris, a dark and deadly hailstorm.

It seemed an hour or more to the blind-folded hobbit, but at last the patter of “rain” tapered off, and then stopped, and the young ruffian returned from the cave mouth; Farry heard him soothing the ponies. And then he was at Farry’s side once more, and Farry felt himself lifted, cradled against the man’s chest, and carried.

‘I don’t know what happened,’ the young ruffian said. ‘An earth-shake, perhaps? But I think it’s time for us to take the ponies and make our escape, before the others return. It would be too much to hope that the earth-shake had caught them in the storehole and sealed them in...!’

Farry nodded against the ruffian’s chest, for he’d been thinking the same thoughts.

He grabbed at the man’s arm as he felt himself laid down. ‘Hush,’ the man said. ‘Steady. I’m just going to fetch the ponies. I just wanted to have you safely out of the way, in case they decide to run. They’re pretty frightened.’

...which was an understatement, to say the least. The young ruffian would much have preferred to wait until the ponies settled down, for he feared the younger mare, especially, might explode once he got her untied; but time pressed upon him, and he knew an unreasoning fear. He must escape, with the young hobbit. They must get away from this dark place, and quickly. Something awful was about to happen; he could feel it in his bones, in the cold chill that traced its way down his spine.

Farry held tight; he too felt a sense of impending dread. The young ruffian gently and patiently worked the hobbit child’s fingers free of his shirt. ‘Steady,’ he said. ‘This is not helping us to get away. Steady, and I’ll come back for you. You’ll sit one pony, and I’ll sit the other, though my legs hang down halfway to the ground...’

Farry did not smile at this proposed vision. He was trembling, and as the young ruffian loosed his hold, he’d grab for another.

But at last the man was able to break free and step away. ‘Steady,’ he said, his cautious, low tones receding. ‘I’ll be back before you know...’

***

It had taken precious time to sort out the ponies, who’d been badly frightened at the wave of violent wind, that had thrown them along with the mustered hobbits to the ground. At last they laid the brawny man, bound and helpless, over the back of one of the pack-ponies, and the Thain, hunters and select archers were mounted—some of these having to borrow ponies of their fellows, their own having been lamed in the disaster—and riding at speed towards the previous “Hoard Hill” while the rest followed more slowly.

It was all too plain, now, what the ruffians’ objective had been. Not the gold mine, nor the silver, nor even ransom... the ransom demand had been a distraction, to lead the hobbits away. Had it not been for the acute skill of the hunters, they’d have been in the wrong place at the wrong time.

...Farry had likely been in the wrong place at the wrong time, Pippin thought grimly. Tears stung at his eyes, and not just from the haze of dust in the air. He was glad of the cloth he wore, over nose and mouth, that kept the worst of the dust from his lungs.

A part of him felt dull, and dead, knowing that if Farry had yet lived, horrible as it was to contemplate, maimed as he was, now there was not even the thinnest shred of hope for the lad.

But the will to vengeance drove him on, made him take the precaution at the healer’s—and Merry’s—insistence. He would survive, bad lungs and all, if only to see for himself that all the ruffians were dead along with his son.

***

‘Not long, now,’ Sam said. He was relieved when the dreadful hail stopped, small stones, and larger. They’d paused in a copse, cowering in the shelter of the trees, until the worst of it was past.

Of course the trail was covered under a “snowfall” of dust, dirt, and rock, but there was no doubt in their mind as to their destination.

Just what they’d do when they got there, that was where their doubts now lay. The ruffian whose boot prints they’d followed was undoubtedly no more in this world. Sam wondered if they’d even find a trace of the man, and any companions he might have had.

He didn’t want to think of Farry, of Pippin’s grief, and Diamond’s.

His thoughts went to the Lady, to that dark time in Mordor, when all he’d wished for was a little water, and a little light. And they’d got it!

He wondered if there were any chance She might be listening to him, all these years later, and on a far different quest, not one on which the future of Middle-earth hung, not exactly. But one very close to Samwise’s heart.

Please, he whispered, deep within himself. Not for my sake, mind, but for Farry’s. For Pippin’s. Yes, and for Master Merry’s as well...

***

Farry lay tense and shivering, feeling the roughness of the pebbled ground under him, listening with all that was in him. He was afraid to pull away the gag, to call out, and he could not bring himself to peek from under the blindfold. And the young ruffian had not even thought to unbind him; he was completely helpless.

The helpless feeling grew a thousand-fold as he heard a fearsome hiss, worse than a snake.

‘You...’

He gasped in horror, and then, paralysed with fear, stopped breathing altogether.

How? he wanted to beg. How did you survive? I thought that WE would not even survive...

But they had, somehow, and so, to his frozen panic and dismay, had Red.

***

Pimpernel woke abruptly at a murmur, her arms tightening on her Ferdibrand, yes, he was here beside her, he had not been taken away. She sat up, then, blinking, looking to where the sound had broken off.

Mardi stood in the doorway, with Rosamunda, who’d stayed to watch over Ferdi while Pimpernel slept.

‘Beg pardon, Nell,’ the old healer said, ‘but I’ve been called away. Seems as if something set off the Thain’s powder hoard—the explosion was heard all the way here, in the yard of the Great Smials, and there’s a dragonload of smoke in the sky.’

‘Pippin?’ Pimpernel said.

‘Now, lass, he wasn’t anywhere near the place, from what we know,’ Mardi said, though what they knew was very little. ‘The muster set out in an entirely different direction.’

Nell nodded, hardly reassured. She was no fool, even if she did tend towards fainting when events were more than she could bear.

‘Anyhow, in the event some wandering shepherd stumbled onto the storehole, somehow managed to get the door open, and decided to satisfy his curiosity, I’m going to ride out with a party of hobbits, to see if there’s anything to be done,’ Mardi said.

At Nell’s look of surprise, he laughed. ‘Yes, Nell,’ he said. ‘It’s the Ride of the Gaffers! But as we’re all that’s left in the Great Smials, with all the others mustered, well, we have to make do.’ He hugged Rosamunda, his daughter, sketched a bow towards the bed, and took his leave.

‘Muster?’ Ferdi whispered, and Nell turned instantly, and soothed his brow with cool fingers.

‘Shh, love, it’s nothing,’ she said. ‘Nothing for you to worry about.’

Ferdi murmured something incomprehensible, and Nell hushed him with another kiss.

When she sat up again, he slept, though a line of puzzlement, perhaps even worry, furrowed his brow.

***

It was uncomfortable, riding folded over a pony’s back, and watching the ground go by not far from his face was dizzying. The brawny man found himself retching as his stomach was jolted in the rough going.

He heard a pony come alongside, riding close, and then both his pony and the other stopped, and a hobbit was bending to address him. It was difficult to tell, with the cloth over the hobbit’s mouth and nose, but the brawny man thought it might be the one the Thain had called “Tolly”, who’d been given charge of keeping the ruffian from escaping.

Fat chance of that, the man thought. Trussed like a chicken, and tossed over the back of a pack-pony... Still, escape was a thought worth chewing over. He didn’t fancy waiting around for the Thain’s vengeance.

But he’d seen the look on the followers’ faces, when Pippin made his terrible pronouncement. Furious, the Tooks were, but some had paled, even so. He might work with that.

‘You still with us?’ the hobbit said. ‘Healer told us to stop and drink, before we cover the last stretch.’

Tolly and another hobbit lifted the brawny man’s upper torso, while another hobbit plied a waterskin, and the ruffian drank, thirstily and with gratitude.

If the hobbits were weak enough to offer him water, perhaps they might be persuaded to employ their much-vaunted mercy. They needed only to loosen his bonds and look away...

‘Thanks,’ he whispered. ‘Thanks, much.’

The water-hobbit nodded, replacing the stopper, and the other two laid the ruffian gently down again. The brawny man could hear the order given, to mount up again, but Tolly lingered by his side.

‘Tolly, was it?’ he ventured.

‘You know my name?’ the hobbit said in surprise, adding wryly, ‘I thought we all looked the same to your sort.’

‘Please, Tolly,’ the brawny man said. ‘Please, I wasn’t a part of it. I was only their messenger. They forced me to... They’d’ve murdered me, had I tried to leave them, to make my own way...’

‘Is that a fact,’ the hobbit said, seeming interested.

The brawny man’s heart leapt within him. ‘Yes!’ he hissed. ‘It is! That’s the way they work! Ah, if only I’d known, when I stumbled on their campfire, hungry and afraid and alone, if only I’d  known what sort they were! I’d’ve remained hungry and cold, and never thrown in my lot with them!’

The muster was moving out; seemingly it was just himself and Tolly, being left in their wake. He coughed a little as the ponies’ feet stirred up the fine dust again.

‘More water?’ Tolly asked.

The brawny man shook his head. ‘No, but please, if you could help me...?’

‘What would you have me do?’ Tolly asked, and the brawny man almost smiled. His freedom, it seemed, was nearly within his grasp.

***

A/N: The idea of “no sound” at the base of the hill that exploded comes from accounts of survivors of Mount Saint Helens’ eruption in May 1980. The sound wave passed high over their heads, and they knew nothing of the eruption until the heat blast overtook them. (Some who were camping in a sheltered valley didn’t even experience the heat blast, but for them, the sky turned black, and fine grey ash fell like snow, and when they tried to hike out, after they reached the edge of their protected pocket, they found the forest ripped apart and nearly impossible to traverse. This blast is obviously not so immense as that, but the principles of physics still apply. The sound wave did not reach the bottom of the hill, but passed outwards and away.)