Chapter 20. We encounter an unexpected difficulty

When, at last, we reach the opposite bank... but it is no longer the opposite bank. Rather, it is this bank, and that other bank where we have just come from, that other bank across the wide stretch of slow-moving yet powerful water, that bank is now the opposite bank.

I shake my head to dispel my confusion. Words can be as slippery as river rocks, I find.

My hobbits delight in playing with words, almost as if they are tossing a ball from one to another as I remember seeing a group of picnickers in our meadow, standing in a circle and tossing a soft ball. It was wound about with strips of cloth, as I found later when I discovered the forgotten ball in the grass. 

When I pushed at it with my nose, it rolled bumpily along the ground. I picked it up and chewed it experimentally, but it tasted like the sleeve of my Old Man's coat, which I'd nibbled along as a foal, making him laugh as I recall. My dam trotted up to me and ordered me to drop the toy immediately in such a tone that I took alarm, threw up my head and rolled my eyes – but I also opened my mouth and let the cloth ball fall to the ground at my feet.

All's well, she told me then. I feared you might swallow it, and that would be a terrible thing.

Since that day, I have regarded such cloth balls with fear and suspicion, whether tossed between two children in the streets of Bree or passing back and forth amongst my hobbits in that marvellous Valley where Merrylegs still grazes. Oddly enough, my hobbits tend to laugh heartily as they throw the cloth ball from hand to hand. Perhaps they are unawares of the dangers...? 

I have trouble believing such a thing. More likely, they know the dangers quite well and are bolstered by their prodigious courage. Just as they speak ever more lightly in the face of heavy matters, their rising laughter in the middle of a game of Toss testifies to their pluck and valour in defying imminent danger. 

Those small, soft toys hardly look perilous, but that is probably part of their treacherous nature.

My companion breaks into my thoughts. Is it well with you?

Quite well, I answer, perhaps untruthfully as things turn out. I am well in that we have made our way safely across the wide expanse of water. The current did not carry me away. Every time the water went over my head and I had to swim, the great horse stayed right by my side, defying the River's attempts to sweep me downstream.

Since my companion told me that this is the shallowest crossing for miles on either side, I can only imagine that the waters run deeper to either side of this "ford". Perhaps so deep, even my companion might be unable to keep his feet but would have to swim and risk being pulled downstream by the current and, perhaps, drowned as those pitiable black horses were at that other ford.

But you are shivering, my companion says in concern.

I am well, I insist.

A brisk trot will warm us up nicely, the great horse says.

No doubt, I answer with a toss of my head.

My companion steps off, and I follow... or I would follow...

I feel so much heavier, somehow, than I did in the water, as if the water was bearing me up the whole time we were crossing the wide River. It is a curious thought, that the waters that threatened to sweep me away were, at the same time, helping me along my way. A mixed blessing, I have heard my hobbits say. How they love to play with words.

Moreover, as the numbness from the chill of the water fades, pain flares in my injured shoulder. Thus, I move into a trot – or try to do so – and immediately stumble, going to my knees with bruising force. 

I hear my companion's trotting feet reverse and rapidly approach the spot where I remain bowed to the ground.

What is it? he demands.

I don't quite... I falter. I take a panting breath, feeling the cold stone against my muzzle, and add, Something's not right.

Can you get up? my companion asks quietly, and I feel his nose push gently against me. Try.

I'll try, I say. I push up with one foreleg, but the other doesn't seem to be working as it ought. I'm trying.

Foot by foot by foot, my good colt.

With a tremendous effort, I am at last able to regain my feet. Three feet, that is. That would be about right, I say wryly.

We cannot stay here, my companion says, then amends, We should not.

You said you did not wish to stop until we've left the ruins behind us...

Yes, my companion affirms, and though the darkness cloaks him almost completely, I know he tosses his head from the sound of it.

Is there danger? I ask.

Great evil was done here – not by the builders but by the destroyers, or so my Rider told me. And dark things may slip through the shadows, hiding themselves in the ruins. It will be good to have open country around us once more.

I shudder but quickly still myself as the movement jars my painful shoulder. Then let us be off. 

Can you...? my companion begins, but I cut him off.

It seems I must. 

For practical purposes, I choose to start off on the wrong foot. In other words, I lift my foreleg on the injured side, suppressing a grunt of pain, thrust it ahead of me, plant it firmly. As I ease my weight onto that leg ­– as I must, in order to take a step with the other foreleg – my head dips to my knees. And then as I shift my weight to the other side, I force my head up, scan my surroundings – and then do it all over again. Thankfully, my hindquarters require little attention and "bring up the rear" (as my hobbits would say) without any need for conscious thought on my part.

It is a walk and not a trot, but it is forward progress, at least. I can feel my companion hovering over me in the darkness. I think he would carry me if he could, just as Master and not-Merry carried Youngest between them for a stretch after he fell upon a time, at least until he protested that his ankle was "quite recovered" and he could walk on his "own two good feet" once more.

How my hobbits love to play with words! I seem to recall how in that instance, the two older cousins teased the younger one about how many feet he possessed and if those feet were too good (rather than "two good") and was he sure he could walk, as his feet had proven rather less good than too good recently.

And by their playfulness and teasing, it seemed to me that they managed to distract Youngest such that they were able to carry him much farther than he originally would have allowed.

Though my head dips with every limping step I take on the bad leg, I stubbornly persist.

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