Chapter 19. Epilogue

~ T.A. 2748 ~

Two riders galloped up a small hill and halted their beasts at the top.

‘We win again!’ Ruby said, patting her pony and then looking up at Bandobras. Her eyes narrowed as she added, ‘Are you cheating?’

The Master’s Chief Scout placed his hand over his heart. ‘Letting you win?’ he asked. ‘Not I,’ he added, then stroked the horse’s neck. ‘I cannot speak for my Friend here, however.’

His eyes drank in the sight of cool sunlight and green grass, waving in a gentle breeze. At night, the sky would fill with myriad stars. And no threat from goblins.

*** 

Smiling, Bandobras turned his head, but Ruby’s face had lost all colour, and she swayed in the saddle. ‘Friend, down,’ he said urgently, and before the horse had fully knelt, he’d slipped from the saddle to stand by her side. ‘My love?’

‘It was here,’ she whispered, and had her lips been carved from wood they might have been less stiff. ‘We were here...’

Bandobras looked about them with new eyes, and saw the other small hill not far away, and the marker Rorric had set between the hills, where the folk of Long Cleeve had made their desperate stand.

*** 

He surrounded her with his arms and bowed his head against her side, and she bent in the saddle and reached out to embrace him, and they held each other in mingled mourning and wonder.

At last, Ruby spoke. ‘I thought we were lost. We knew you couldn’t ride all that way, and gather hobbits from all around the Shire, and ride back again in time.’ She felt him shudder and nod. ‘But...’ she murmured into his hair. ‘You came!’

When he lifted his face to hers, she traced his tears with a gentle finger. ‘So many lost,’ he whispered.

‘So many saved,’ she murmured, and kissed him, a gentle, healing kiss this time, atop the hill where he’d saved her father and others with a desperate swing of a borrowed, unfamiliar club. ‘You saved so many.’

He tried to smile. ‘Well I had a little help,’ he said.

Ruby straightened and keenly surveyed the landscape. ‘The grass is so green, and there’s no sign...’

‘Nothing to show that a battle was ever fought here,’ Bandobras acknowledged. ‘Except, perhaps, that ridiculous lay that Archie likes to sing...’

‘You are a hero, you know.’

‘No more of one than anyone else.’

*** 

Hand in hand the pair of them walked, the Master’s daughter and his Chief Scout, with horse and pony ambling behind. At last, with the two small hills behind them, Bandobras stopped and said, ‘Well, I think I can report to the Council that the Greenfields are fair and green, and they might consider beginning another town here...’

‘With a sturdy wall of stone, and a watch-tower or two,’ Ruby said.

‘If only to keep out the wolves when the winter winds blow cold,’ Bandobras said.

‘If only to keep out the wolves,’ she echoed, but both remembered other foes.

*** 

Suddenly Friend threw up his head and whinnied, high and wild, and the horse, who’d followed Bandobras like a devoted hound since the previous summer, went from slow walk to galloping in the wink of an eye.

Bandobras lifted his hands to his mouth to call after the horse. ‘Friend!’

But Ruby pointed. ‘Look!’

A lone figure was striding over the rolling grassland. From a distance, it might have been one of their fellows from Long Cleeve, but when the horse reached the stranger, they realised how much taller he was than themselves.

Then he vaulted lightly into Friend’s saddle.

*** 

‘It’s Wanderer!’ Bandobras gasped.

‘The goblin-hunter you told us about?’ Ruby said, though it was more statement than question. ‘O Dobby...’

Horse and Rider cantered towards them; on reaching them, Friend stopped. The Man dismounted and knelt before them, to see eye to eye.

‘My thanks, Bandobras, for keeping my companion for me. I’m sorry I was kept away for so long. He looks fit and well!’

‘Fat and sassy,’ Ruby said boldly. ‘Dobby’s spoilt him silly. I don’t suppose you’d want him anymore...’

The Man threw back his head and laughed, and soon the hobbits were laughing with him.

*** 

‘Wanderer, I should like you to meet my wife,’ Bandobras said with his arm around Ruby.

The Man bowed, strangely graceful for someone kneeling. ‘At your service,’ he said.

‘And at yours,’ Ruby replied. ‘And I should say...!’

‘Indeed,’ Bandobras agreed.

‘I beg your pardon?’ Wanderer said.

‘No need for that!’ Bandobras said, whilst Ruby laughed aloud. ‘You see, your Friend saved us...! Saved our town, and all who now live there!’

‘Saved...?’ the Man said, bemused, and then he straightened and said, ‘I sense there is a tale here to be told.’

‘We are picnicking,’ Ruby said. ‘Join us!’

*** 

They sat together beneath the smiling Sun; the Hobbits shared the food stowed away in the saddlebags of pony and horse but invited the Man to come to Long Cleeve for a proper feast.

But he demurred. ‘Another time, perhaps,’ he said. ‘I barely managed to steal enough time away to come and relieve you of Friend’s care...’

‘Relieve us!’ Ruby said. ‘Why, he’s part of the family now! More of a brother than a friend!’

‘Then I shall definitely have to bring him back to visit his relations,’ Wanderer smiled.

‘We shall hold you to that,’ Ruby said sternly.

*** 

When the Sun had slipped halfway to the horizon, Wanderer bowed and begged to take his leave. ‘Friend and I have far to go to reach our destination.’

‘But what about the goblins?’ Bandobras said. ‘Wouldn’t you better spend the night at Long Cleeve and set out in the morning?’ 

‘Fear no more goblins, at least for now,’ Wanderer replied, suddenly grim. ‘Though we fought many battles, trying to hold them back, and one party managed to reach the Shire, we cut down all those who escaped your archers last summer. Since that time, ever fewer have tested our defences.’

*** 

The three rose from their picnic and walked together to where the pony grazed and Friend waited.

The horse lowered his head and whuffled at the hobbit. Bandobras burst into tears and threw his arms around the noble head. ‘I’ll always remember you, my Friend! Be well! Take good care of yourself and your Rider!’ 

Ruby, too, was weeping. She stroked Friend’s nose and said, ‘Thank you for everything. For bringing my love safely there and back again, for saving my father and my friends...’

‘You’ll give him a big head,’ Wanderer warned, and the hobbits laughed through their tears.

*** 

Wanderer mounted, raising his hand in farewell. Friend snorted as if to say the same. Then, as if of one accord, they turned towards the East.

But Friend seemed to hesitate, for his great head came around, and he looked back at the hobbits. He nickered softly.

‘Go with my blessing, Friend,’ Bandobras said. ‘You’ll always have a place with us if you ever need one.’ He met Wanderer’s eye and added, ‘We’ll even welcome your Rider!’ 

‘My thanks for that – I think,’ Wanderer said, and laughed.

Bandobras and Ruby watched them ride away until they were out of sight.

*** 

‘Dobby?’ Ruby said as they rode the pony back to Long Cleeve. Their shadows grew long behind them as the Sun painted her loveliest colours on the sky to cheer them.

‘Yes, my love?’

‘Who is he? That Man? And why did he come?’

‘For Friend!’

‘No. I mean, before?’

‘He’s a goblin-hunter, dearest. He said they fought many battles... and more...’

‘More?’

‘I think,’ Bandobras said, feeling his way, ‘I think that he and his kin are somehow sent to guard us from goblins and other dangers.’

‘Guard us!’

‘I cannot explain. But my heart says they are... Hope.’

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^{THE END}

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 Author’s note: “cool sunlight and green grass” reflects Pippin’s thoughts before the Black Gate as he anticipated his death in battle in “The Black Gate Opens” in The Return of the King by J.R.R. Tolkien.