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The Thrum of Tookish Bowstrings, Part 1  by Lindelea

Chapter 19. Trap

It was perhaps the light that woke the young hobbit, rather a dull, sullen light, but far different from the inky blackness that had surrounded him as he’d gone to sleep. The silence, too, was strangely unnerving. He realised that the wind, which had roared through his uneasy dreams, had dropped to near-stillness.

Faramir gulped back a dry sob – his eyes were hot and dry, as if he had no more tears to weep – and uncurled from his rolled-up position. He stretched his limbs as well as he could, finding them stiff and cramped. It was surprisingly warm in his small, rough-walled lair – probably, from what he remembered of Haldi's lesson, due to his body heat and the warmth of his exhalations in this confined space.

His private theory was confirmed as he stuck his head out through the opening to survey his surroundings. He shivered at the damp chill, and his breath issued in a cloud, telling him that the temperature, though above the freezing point, was low enough to offer a danger of succumbing to the cold. The daylight was dimmed by heavy cloud cover, and he couldn't tell what time of day it might be, though he suspected it was well past dawning. He would not be using the Sun's help to find his way northwards to the Stock Road and thence to the Crowing Cockerel to summon aid, not this day, at least.

The clearing was silent. Farry scrutinised his surroundings as far as he could see from the opening he'd carved, and then he leaned out and studied the ground. No dogs.

'Hulloo!' he called softly, and then repeated the summons a little louder. Surely if the wild dogs were nearby, they'd return to jump at the tree where he was sheltering.

He looked towards the centre of the clearing, where a gaping hole provided silent testimony to the events of the previous evening. 'Ferdi?' he called. His voice in his own ears sounded young and tentative. He tried a little louder. 'Uncle Ferdi?'

No answer came, not that he was really expecting any. Could his uncle even hear him from the bottom of a dry-well that was two ruffians deep, if not more? At least no dogs came baying or sniffing or jumping in response to the plaintive sound of the lad's voice.

He gathered the shreds of his courage, wrapping them around himself much the same way that he nestled further into his winter cloak. He had to know the truth, no matter how much it hurt him.

The prickling at his throat when he swallowed down this hard knowledge was another reminder. Rescue, should the sky remain cloudy, preventing him from finding his way to the Crowing Cockerel, was perhaps a week away. From Haldi's lessons, Farry knew he might die of thirst in half that time. He had to find water, if he could. If the cloud cover persisted, preventing him from finding his way safely to the Stock Road, he had to find their flasks, his and Ferdi's. They'd be at least half-full, he thought. He swallowed down a lump again and blinked, though no tears came to his eyes. They had planned to fill the flasks with fresh, cold, pure water from Lotho's well, and drink a toast together to the brave hobbits who'd kept the borderlands in the time of the troubles, and another toast to the courageous Travellers who'd done their bit in the Outlands.

'And I'll drink a toast to you, Uncle, if I ever come this way again,' Farry promised under his breath as he made sure of his bow case and quiver, eased himself out of his refuge and began to climb down. He didn't actually remember unstringing his bow and putting it away, but it had been in its case when he'd wakened. But then, the Thain's archers were constantly harping on the forming of good habits – for habit would step in when an archer was distracted by circumstances, such as a battle going on all around him as had been the case for those at Bywater, and for those who'd followed Paladin to other parts, to drive out the ruffians. And, Farry thought to himself, for those who had been in the Muster that had rescued him from murderous ruffians.

Farry had found such repetition tiresome, truth be told, but now that he had experienced its usefulness himself, he had to give credit to the archers that they knew what they were talking about after all.

He hesitated before letting himself down from the last branch, looking around thoroughly and listening hard. The dogs were gone.

Still, better to be safe than sorry. He steadied himself on the branch by leaning his shoulder against the bole of the tree while he took out his bow and strung it. It was a matter of a second or two after he swung down from that last branch to pull an arrow from his quiver and loosely nock it to his bowstring.

Cautiously, trying to look in every direction at once, he made his way to the edge of the pit. When he felt the willow branches start to give under his foot, he stepped back. The entire cap had not collapsed, but only the middle section. 'Ferdi?' he called.

He thought he heard the low whine of a dog in reply, and his stomach clenched. What if the dog had survived? He hated to think of the scene that might await him. Still, he had to know. So he sat at the edge, where the solid ground ended, and kicked at the lattice, sending showers of sticks and leaves down into the pit under the force of his blows.

He had never been so happy as when he heard his uncle's voice shout, 'Hi! Who's there!'

'Uncle Ferdi!' he cried. 'Uncle Ferdi, you're alive!'

'Praise be,' came the fervent answer from underground. 'Farry,’ his uncle added hoarsely. ‘Is it well with you, lad?' 

Laughing and crying at the same time, though his eyes remained too dry for tears, Farry nodded. Of course, his uncle couldn't see such a thing. Somehow he found his voice and shouted, 'Yes! I'm well!'

So of course his uncle hushed him. 'If the dogs are gone, and I gather that they are, unless you shot them all like you shot my silver friend, here, then go quietly, lad! Do not call them back here!'

Farry ducked his head with a blush. More quietly, he answered, 'Cover your head, Uncle. I want to kick away the lattice from the edge here.'

Hearing Ferdi's assent, he laid his bow and arrow aside, within easy reach of snatching up quickly, and kicked away at the woven sticks and leaves with a will, wreaking havoc on the damaged lattice, until the entire half of the remaining structure on Farry's side of the pit gave way and cascaded downward. Farry thought he heard both hobbit and canine yelps, but his uncle called reassurance to him that "they" were all right.

Farry looked around the clearing again, waited a long moment as he listened for the baying of a dog pack on the hunt, and then unstrung his bow and returned it to its case. It would take him little enough time to re-string it, should he hear the dogs approaching, but it would do him no good to leave it strung and risk the weapon losing its effectiveness from the cool damp air. Then he leaned over the edge, to look down into darkness.

'Don't fall in!' came his uncle's alarmed tones.

'I won't lean over too far,' Farry said. 'And the ground seems solid here at the edge.' He knocked his knuckles lightly against the rim. 'I think the engineers must've lined the trap with rock.'

He heard a fervent 'O aye' from the darkness below. 'Still,' Ferdi added, his voice rasping,' I'd feel better about it if I didn't see so much of you hanging over this pit!' Farry heard him follow this sentiment with a cough.

It seemed his uncle could see him, outlined against the sky, even though he could not make out any details at the bottom of the ruffian trap. His uncle's voice, and the whine of the dog, were all he had to go by.

Listening hard, he heard his uncle soothing the canine prisoner. All right, fellow. All will be well. 

‘You've befriended the wolf that attacked you?’ Farry said in bewilderment.

‘Saved my life, he did,’ came Ferdi's answer. ‘He's not so bad, once you get to know him. Though the fall knocked me out, he offered me no harm while I lay there, defenseless. As a matter of fact, when I awakened after falling into this pit, he was snuggled against me. Kept me warm through the night.’ 

Farry realised his mouth was hanging open at this recital of events, so he closed it with a snap. 

And then Ferdi coughed again, raised his voice and called, ‘Is there any water, lad?’

The thought made Farry want to cough himself, his throat was that dry. ‘A moment, Uncle,’ he called back. ‘I’ll go and fetch your flask.’

It was rather more than a moment as he scoured through the wreckage the dogs had left, trying to find the pieces of their packs, where their water flasks had been fastened. When he found his own flask, his breath came short. Powerful jaws had crushed and torn the vessel, leaving no chance that it might have held any water through the dark hours. Determinedly, the lad kept searching, even though he now held out little hope.

And then, in the last place he looked – It’s always in the last place you look, laddie, he heard Adelard’s chuckle in his mind – under the remains of what he thought might have been Ferdi’s spare shirt, he found his uncle’s water flask, tooth-marked but seeming intact.

He shook it. Less than a quarter of the flask’s contents remained, from what he could tell. Some of the contents must have leaked out as it lay on the ground. It would have to do. It was all they had. He opened it and tilted it to let some of the lifegiving liquid run into his mouth, swishing it around. His mouth was dry enough to absorb it all, leaving none to swallow. He could have gulped the entire contents, but he didn’t; he allowed himself one more heartening swallow.

Then he steeled himself and took the flask over to the pit. ‘It’s not much,’ he said. ‘We were going to fill our flasks at the well, remember? We didn’t think we had to save any.’

‘I’ll take what I can get,’ Ferdi rasped, but then he added, ‘but you drink it, lad, if there’s only a little. We’ll be fine here, my furry friend and I.’

‘No,’ Farry said. He would have told his uncle that he’d already drunk his fill, but Ferdi would hear the lie and know it for what it was, so he settled for, ‘I had some, already.’ He thought to distract his uncle then, so he added, ‘The flask might be damaged, so we’ll have to be careful tossing it down to you.’

He held the flask over the lip of the well. ‘Can you see it?’ he said. ‘If I drop it from here, will you be able to catch it?’

As he’d hoped, Ferdi fastened on the problem at once. ‘I think so,’ he said. ‘I won’t be able to see it in the darkness after you let it go, but if you drop it straight from where you’re holding it, I think I can catch it.’

‘Very well, then, here it comes,’ Farry said, and let the flask slip from his grasp before he could have second thoughts – and a second swallow.

‘Got it!’ came Ferdi’s triumphant call from the darkness below, followed by another cough as if the shout had strained his voice, and then, ‘You were right... not much here. Still, a swallow’s better than naught, I should say.’   

He must have had that swallow of water, for his next words sounded much more like himself. 'Can you go for help, lad?' the older hobbit said. 'Take your bow and quiver, and make your way northward?'

Farry shook his head, though of course his uncle was unlikely to see the gesture. 'The sky's all over clouds,' he answered. 'Heavy clouds. I cannot even tell in what part of the sky the Sun is keeping herself at the moment.'

His uncle was silent, which made Farry listen harder. He heard the dog whine again, and the hobbit trapped with him murmured low. ‘There’s only one more swallow left, old fellow. D’you think you can lap it out of my hand, should I pour it out for you?’ After a pause, he heard his uncle say, ‘There’s a good fellow.’

He listened to another long moment of silence until Ferdi spoke again. 'Is it cold? Rainy? Snow?' The older hobbit chuckled grimly. 'I tell you, lad, the bottom of this pit is about the same temperature as one of the cool rooms off the kitchens in the Great Smials, and I've no idea of the weather, whether it's freezing up there, or blazing hot.'

'It's not blazing hot,' Farry said with a shiver.

'You should get yourself to shelter if you're cold,' Ferdi said.

'How did you –?' Farry began, but his uncle interrupted him.

'I can hear your shivers in your voice,' Ferdi said. 'Or...' he added, then stopped as if thinking through a problem. 'Farry, I think Isen's worked with you on properly building and sparking a fire, has he not?'

'Yes!' Faramir said, wanting to slap himself on the forehead. Why hadn't he thought of that?

'So go, scrounge up some kindling and small branches, scrape away the ground cover down to bare dirt – or rock would be better, if at all possible, and then get flint and steel out of one of our packs...'

Farry hated to interrupt him. 'The dogs, Uncle Ferdi,' he said.

He heard instant alarm in the answer. 'The dogs? They're back? Get up that tree right now, young hobbit! Don't worry about me – I'm as safe as if I were in a fortress at the moment!'

'No,' Farry said reluctantly. 'They ate up all our packs.'

He heard his uncle echo softly from the darkness below, '...ate up all our...'

Farry took a steadying breath. ‘But I was able to find the flasks, after all, and I can find your tinder box next, Uncle. I’m sure I can!’ He knew exactly what it looked like. Pippin had presented it to Ferdi on his previous birthday, a shining, finely tooled silver box with a tight-fitting lid. Just a mathom, Pippin had said at the time, when Ferdi drew a sharp breath as if about to say it was much too fine a treasure for the likes of himself, I do believe Gimli gave it to Merry before Merry gave it to me. If you think the Dwarf would like it, you can give it to Gimli next time you see him. Won’t that be a fine joke!

‘Good lad,’ he heard Ferdi murmur, sounding weary, but then the older hobbit added, all too evidently injecting cheer into his tone, ‘you do that, lad. Find the box and build that fire. Get yourself warm before you catch your death.’

‘Why would anyone go chasing after death, to try and catch it, is what I’d like to know,’ Farry muttered under his breath. It was a favourite of his father’s whimsies, and he could almost hear Steward Reginard answer with his inevitable ‘None of your nonsense, now, lad.’

The memory made the teen smile, and he almost felt better as he set out to find the silver box. As soon as he’d found it, he figured he’d better build the fire and get it going well, and then he must gather as much wood as he possibly could before darkness fell once more, enough to burn all through the long winter night and well into the next day. Not only could he warm himself, but he’d have another weapon against the dogs if they should return to the clearing, one that would not run out, like the arrows in his quiver. He was already missing one – the one he’d shot into Ferdi’s present companion in the pit.

Of course, once he had a fire going, there’d be no question of climbing the tree again, to curl in the warm little nest he’d dug out for himself, or to seek safety from the dogs or any other wild creatures that might be about. No, but he’d have to stay by the fire, to make sure it didn’t creep out of its established circle to set the surrounding woodland ablaze. A fire was something of a two-edged sword, he mused, or a Gollum of a creature, both servant and deadly foe in one. But the same fire that could threaten the woods would help him keep the dogs at bay, should they return. 

He nodded to himself. It was a sound plan. He’d thrust a few long sticks into the flames, burn the ends, and then pull them out again and keep them handy. They’d catch again quickly if he needed a flaming brand to wave in his defence.

*** 





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