Chapter 87. The final battle

All is darkness and silence, as in the time when the great horse and I forded a mighty river that seemed intent on pulling us under and drowning us. I try to lift my head and kick my legs, but a heavy weight seems to bear me down and constrains my breathing.

At least I am breathing! ...a little air, taken in gulps, is certainly preferable to drowning.

As if in a dream, I feel myself grow lighter, overtaken by a floating sensation that fits well with the memory of fording a deep river swirling with swift and treacherous currents. With my wakening, my world is no longer silent, for I become aware of a roaring sound – whether heavy rain, thunder, or many voices raised in battle, or something else, I do not know.

No longer hampered by the sensation of crushing weight, I roll to my stomach and painfully regain my feet, blinking to clear my blurred vision.

Oddly, Mithrandir's voice teases at the edges of my thoughts. Stand, Men of the West! Stand and wait! This is the hour of doom!

The nearby roaring sound seems to die down, becoming a deep rumbling wherein the very ground beneath my hoofs seems to tremble.

At first I can see nothing but stifling darkness. Then all at once, a flash of red leaps upward to smite the hard black roof that stretches above. I am in a tunnel, as when I last followed my Sam in a dreary, darkened land.

As if my thoughts have conjured the hobbit, the next flash of ruddy light reveals my Sam, lying unmoving, face-down on the floor of this tunnel, only a few steps beyond me. The smell of blood rises to my nostrils, confirming the fleeting glimpse that showed blood running down from his head and pooling on the floor.

I nicker softly, little more than a rumble in my throat, for what if those dreadful creatures – Orcs, smelling similar to those shadows in the trees of the Chetwood – are nearby? I catch a whiff of that scent, but it is elusive, and so I turn my full attention back to my dearest hobbit.

The flashes help to light my way as I step cautiously, not wanting to tread my Sam underfoot yet driven forwards by an urgent impulse that is, frankly, beyond my understanding. Paying no heed to the feelings of revulsion and fear that arise from the smell of blood, I lower my nose and nudge him gently. Sam! Wake up! Let us leave this dreadful place...

At last, my hobbit stirs, and then he pushes himself up on hands and knees and totters to his feet, where he stands swaying. Indeed, he can scarcely stand; he slumps against the nearest wall and grabs at the rock to keep from falling.

I stay right beside him. Come away, I coax.

But no, he gropes his way forward, away from the opening I more feel than see behind us, towards the source of the leaping, glaring light...

I force my eyes away from the sight of my hobbit, to look past him, though the flashes of light are both threatening and painful to behold. 

Not far ahead, a great fissure, too wide for even one of the Mearas to jump, cleaves the tunnel floor and walls, spewing vivid flares of reddish light and rumbling with menace, like distant thunder fast approaching. Lungs burning from the reek of smoke and fire, I stare at the struggling figure at the very brink. Does my Sam have some thought of saving the creature from its imminent peril? I would not put it past the hobbit, soft-hearted fellow that he is, though he should put himself at great risk of going over the edge himself, either with or without that other small figure, wasted and wizened though it might be.

The maddened, hissing, hobbit-sized creature – could it be another of my hobbits? The red light from the fissure comes fully awake now, blazing in fury. Outlined against the glare is a shadow that sways to and fro, now so near the brink that both my Sam and I catch our breath, then dragging back, falling to the ground, rising, and falling again.

I think if my Sam would pull him to safety, he must make his move most carefully, indeed, and not when the imperilled hobbit is at the very edge of disaster! But sick and weak as he is, with the blood streaming from his head and dripping in his eyes, will he be able to take action without sending the both of them over the edge?

And then, the most wondrous – and terrible – thing occurs, for suddenly our Master, Sam's and mine, is here with us! I did not see him move past us, towards the fissure with its unbearable heat and light, towards that other hobbit – for it must be a hobbit! What else could it be? – who is only a misstep away from disaster!

...smaller than the rest of my hobbits, it can only be Youngest! My mind leaps to the most logical conclusion I can imagine in this time and place. Master has caught up with us, and seeing our indecision, he dived past us to save his beloved younger cousin!

...but missed his hold with a cry, falling upon his knees at the chasm's edge, himself in peril as great or greater than that of the one he would rescue from deadly peril!

For somehow, Youngest has got hold of that dreadful token, that Thing Master carried at his breast during our entire journey, except for that short time when he was not with us and my Sam had no choice but to carry on. He holds it high in triumph, crowing in glee, his voice unrecognisable. I cannot see him; I cannot see his face, for I cannot take my horrified gaze from that circle of living fire in his hand as he dances, there at the very edge – dances like a mad thing.

'Precious, precious, precious!' he cries, his voice so distorted as to sound like that of a stranger. The smell of my Sam's fear and dismay reaches me dimly against the broader atmosphere of nearly unbreathable smoke and fire. I start forward – not that I have the faintest idea of what I might intend – but even as Youngest shouts, 'My Precious! O my Precious!' he steps too far in his foolish dance, topples, wavers for an instant, giving me hope that he might yet catch his balance, or Master might catch at his ankle and, holding tight, save him even as he falls...

...but shrieking, Youngest falls over the edge and out of our sight, with only a last, despairing Precious! to mark his passage...

*** 

...and he is gone. They are gone, Youngest – if it was Youngest, indeed, though I have no reason to believe it was anyone else... and our Master... and my dearest... dearest Sam.

But – and this is all so very confusing, I can scarcely marshal my thoughts – somehow I find myself lying on the ground. Pressed into the ground, as a matter of fact, by some unidentifiable but heavy weight that, as I seem to remember, crashed down upon me with bruising force, though I am not sure how long ago that might have been.

My head is muddled. For a moment or three, I am not sure where I am, or how I came to be here.

The ground underneath me is soft and grassy, not comprised of harsh rock, and I am no longer surrounded by the confines of a tunnel, but rather, I can sense open space all around me.

The roar of the fiery chasm – or perhaps that of battle, of the voices of Men and Hobbits shouting and screaming – or perhaps the angry sky, thundering in menace – has stilled, as has all sense of movement, as if time itself has halted.

After a brief eternity, the earth seems to tremble beneath me, and then the merest hint of a breeze caresses my cheek, as if the Bree-land itself has released its pent-up breath in a sigh.

Tall Bob calls nearby, his voice filled with urgency, 'The lad's under all this...! Look there, you can see a furry foot sticking out from under, just there...! Help me get them up!'

Them, as it turns out, is "the ponies" – my dam and I. For in the next breath, I can hear Tall Bob coaxing, and there are other voices, and the next thing I know, the weight that was pressing me into the earth is moving. Breathing. It is a breathing weight. No, it is a breathing weight that is moving, even as the voices (not my Voices, to be clear, but those of Men and Hobbits) speak soft, encouraging words.

And then the weight is gone entirely, so suddenly that I groan a little at the sense of relief and release. Now I can see Tall Bob bending over me, and he closes his fingers around my harness and speaks slowly, voicing soft, gentle encouragement along with an ongoing pull as if he means to lift me up himself. As if he could... 'Steady now, laddie, steady... Up we come...'

Another voice is calling, 'When I tell you, pull him out from under! ...now!' ...as I roll to my chest.

'I've got him!' the words are spoken softly and marred with tears. Butterbur – the innkeeper himself – rises from a crouch, bearing a small, limp form. One of the tween's arms hangs down, and though unconscious, he is still clutching a blade, a long knife, of the kind the Woodmen use to trim branches from the trees they have cut down. Nearly a sword in a Hobbit's hand...

'He was slashing at the traces, even as they went down...' someone is saying. 'Brave lad, he thought to save them...'

'He would've, too, if he'd only had a few seconds more before the waggon upset altogether,' Jocko answers. 'Good thing you were standing ready to boil out through the Gate at our call, or things would've gone badly for us. They're bad enough, as it is.'

'He's alive,' the innkeeper sobs. 'Alive...' 

Young Tom Pickthorn rises from the injured Man he is tending, wiping his bloody hands on a cloth as he gains his feet. Then he closes in, blocking my sight of the tween in Butterbur's arms.

'Up we come, Bill-my-Lad,' Tall Bob says again, moving to my head to exert a gentle pull at my bridle. I stagger to my feet and stand trembling, absently taking stock as I survey our surroundings. I am shaken, for certain, but nothing seems to hurt. O' course, I've not yet taken a step, but at least I have the strength to stand under my own power.

The fog is gone, washed away by the gentle rain that is falling from clouds that no longer hang low, black and threatening, but have receded into the sky and lightened in colour, as if the Sun has overslept and is only now, belatedly, rubbing the sleep from her eyes.

My dam stands nearby, head drooping, with one of our club-Men and two Hobbits – not our archers, so they must have come from the town – fussing over her.

Bodies are strewn over the turf all around us, mainly identifiable to me as townsfolk or ruffians by their smell. The Hobbits, of course, are all townsfolk – some of them having come out through the gateway with us, bearing bows to protect us; but there are more Hobbits on the ground than I can account for. Some of them must have come from the town as part of the crowd of rescuers who heard our archers sound the alarm and issued from the Westgate armed with whatever might serve them as weapons.

All of the fallen ruffians are Men, though not all the Men are ruffians, if you take my meaning.

But are they truly? The smell that wafts through the misting rain from the nearest body has an odd, unwholesome flavour that reminds me of my dreams of Orcs. For they were dreams, were they not?

I begin to tremble again, and Tall Bob soothes me. 'Let us see what the trouble is, Bill-my-Lad,' he croons. 'Take a step now... just one step... come along, Laddie...'

I push one leg forward and ease my weight onto it, without so much as a twinge. Much encouraged, I repeat the process with my other foreleg, and then again, and my hindquarters begin to follow without any thought needed on my part. And so Tall Bob leads me in a small circle and then halts us again, sounding pleased. 'I don't think he's been lamed, by all that's green and growing...'

'Some bruising, nonetheless.' I recognised the voice of old Master Underhill, who seems to have come out with the rest of the relief party – rescue party – reinforcement party – or perhaps they sent for him after the battle was done. 'The mare, too, ought to have a day or two of rest, and a bit of my balm would not go amiss...'

More waggons, more ponies, and even a few larger waggons drawn by horses arrive. Bodies, both moving and unmoving, are being sorted by our grim-faced guards and rescuers. Some townsfolk are wrapped in blankets after Healer Pickthorn, the Younger, that is, has finished tending their wounds, ensuring that they may be carried safely, without further harm, until they are once more within the town walls. Their uninjured fellows work together to pick them up and gently lay them in one or another of the waggons that will soon be bound for the Westgate, and home. Other injured Men and Hobbits who can walk, after a fashion, are helped up into the waggons by their fellows.

One waggon has been reserved for the fallen ruffians, and it ends up piled high with ill-smelling bodies. The reek of Orkishness that I sensed earlier grows stronger as Tall Bob leads me past on our way back to the Gate. I have the oddest notion that some of them might be part Man and part Orc, but who has ever heard of such a thing?

Of all the ruffians who remain, none have survived; the only wounded or walking to be seen are townsfolk. When the would-be robbers saw the battle going against them, they retreated, dragging their injured with them, or so I heard Jocko tell one of the townshobbits that came out, pitchfork in hand, to defend us. Perhaps they feared the wrath of honest Bree-folk after being stripped of their weapons and outnumbered once the rescuers reached us and "evened the odds", as I heard Jocko put it a moment ago, what ever that may mean.

'It's just as well,' Mossy, a guard answers, entering into the conversation. 'When the mists of battle cleared, I was so very angry – angrier than I ever remember being in my life – angry enough to slay any wounded they might've left behind!' In a lower tone, he adds, 'But that would make me no better a Man than any of them are.'

Jocko reaches up to slap the Man on the back. 'I s'pose that's why you're with us, and not with them,' he says lightly. 'And for that, I'll buy the first round when we get back to the Pony...'

Walking slowly back to the Westgate with the crowd of waggons and walkers, I am suddenly roused from a half-dream by a sharp exclamation from the innkeeper, who walks nearby, carrying his young Hobbit groom since Young Tom has declared, 'twould be "better for him than riding in a jolting waggon". 'Bert! Young Bert! You're...'

Though I prick my ears to hear more, the rest is too softly spoken for me to make out. Soon after, however, Butterbur turns aside and makes his way directly to us – to Tall Bob and me, that is, for Ham (who came out from the gate with the body of rescuers) is several paces behind us, hand-walking my dam.

'Here he is, lad,' the Man says on reaching us, strangely gentle, the words spoken slowly and not in any way brisk or businesslike, not sounding like himself at all, in other words. 'Here's your poppet, well and sound!'

Tall Bob allows me to pull my head aside from his guiding hand, that I might whuffle the ashen youth, who begins to reach out to me but winces and resorts to staring, instead, looking me over as thoroughly as he is able, considering the fact that his eyes are blinking, as if he cannot quite see straight, and the cloth bound round his head nearly covers one of his eyes. 

I rest my nose lightly on his bound-up hand – so lightly as to inflict no weight at all, or perhaps only the weight of a butterfly touch. Is it well with you, my Bert?

'Look at 'im,' Tall Bob says. 'Why, Master, I should think he's as worried as any of us!'

'Naught to worry about,' Butterbur says, brisk and businesslike once more. 'Young Tom says you've took no harm other than a knock on your noggin and a wrist that's sprained if not broke! Considering being crushed under two ponies, I'd say you came out well enough...'

'Well enough,' Tall Bob says. 'What is it you like to say, Master? All's well that ends better?'

But the innkeeper only shakes his head. 'All's well, in spite of everything,' he amends. 'And that's all I can say about this business. Should they ever come back again, they'll rue the day...'

'I should say, they're ruing the day already,' Jocko says. 'And if those ruffians should ever show their faces here again, they'll fare much worse than they did this day! I'm fed up to here!' ...and he holds his flat hand against his brow. '...and I'm not afraid to shoot to kill, if that is what it takes to keep them away for good!'

A shocked silence is all the answer he receives. But from the soft talk that starts up again, both before and behind us, it seems that the archer is not the only Bree-lander who has had his fill of ruffians.

If Ferny and his ilk have any sense at all, they'll stay away from now on.

As for my own dear hobbits... I do not know what to think, or even what to hope. 

***  

Author's note: Of course, some turns of phrase in this chapter were drawn from The Lord of the Rings, by J.R.R. Tolkien.

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