10. The Argument

The thunk of an arrow slamming solidly into the target, followed by the Oooo of the onlookers, punctuated the Thain’s quiet conversation with his sons. Isumbras jerked, clearly distracted – for by rights, he ought to be standing at the front of the crowd, cheering on his Tookish archers! – but he wrenched his attention back to the topic at hand.

‘How many?’ he asked.

‘Our estimates keep increasing as ever more of the creatures make their presence known,’ Bandobras answered. ‘But it’s all too clear they’ll soon have the numbers to attack and overwhelm Long Cleeve itself – sooner rather than later.’

*** 

The Thain had a practical solution. At least, in his eyes, it was eminently practical. Best of all, his wife would no longer be mourning the absence of her second-oldest son!

‘Remove everyone from Long Cleeve to the Tookland?’ Bandobras echoed, looking at his father as if the old Took had lost his wits.

‘There’s plenty of empty land yet in the Green Hill country,’ Isumbras repeated, reaching up to gently clout Bandobras on his head. ‘Don’t go lookin’ at your da that way! It’s best for everyone! Tookland needs farmers and shepherds. And if troubles should come, we’ve Tookish archers!’ 

*** 

‘But the goblins will come here,’ Bandobras argued. ‘Even if we were able to bring everyone safely from the North-lands, the monsters wouldn’t be satisfied with their conquest.’ He looked around the small circle that was gathering, as Tookish archers who’d finished shooting the current round came to see what was keeping the Thain from spectating.

He took a shuddering breath. ‘You have to see that we’re their prey.’

‘I don’t see,’ Isumbras said. ‘They seem to want to drive hobbits from the North-lands... perhaps they see hobbits as the invaders... What makes you think it wasn’t their land to start?’

‘You don’t see,’ Bandobras affirmed. ‘When we first came to the North-lands, we scouted far and wide, from the forest to the marshes, before establishing the site for Long Cleeve, and only afterwards did the farmers choose their land and begin ploughing and building smials and putting up fences and all the rest. There were no goblins then – no goblins in the North-lands for more than four years! They’re coming from somewhere else... beyond...’

‘Beyond where?’

‘East, somewhere, we think. And they’re not after land!’

‘What d’you mean?’

‘They want hobbits.’ Bandobras breathed deeply and repeated, ‘We’re their food.’

***