A Burg’s Tale: Chapter Two

My breather lasted approximately one hour before more trouble found me. Chasing rangers, trying to save them from Amdir, who was on a quest to kill them all. What fun. And then the last of them told me to go to his chieftain – Strider. Good luck with that one, I thought as the Ranger in front of me died. He’s off on something so important he couldn’t be there to end Amdir and save you all.

But I was told to talk to Barliman Butterbur in the Prancing Pony to find out where Strider might be. I didn’t have much hope of that, honestly. When I arrived at the Pony, I meant to ask the proprietor and, when I got the answer I fully expected, see if I could rent a room and put it all behind me. I had tried. I could go on living my life and not worrying about someone else’s problems and some mad, darkness-taken Ranger committing murders on his own. Strider hadn’t cared enough in the beginning to stop it. Why would he care now?

I didn’t get the answer I expected, though. Barliman spoke of a brooding, dark figure, a Ranger, and how people here were afraid of their kind. I almost told him he was right to be so, given there was one running around slaughtering people for Sauron, but I held my tongue. Butterbur then went on to say that he didn’t want this man around, but he had coin enough to keep a room and I couldn’t blame him for it. After all, the man has to make his living somehow and a Ranger that isn’t insane and evil is probably just fine to house. “Calls himself Strider,” the proprietor then informed me.

Of course. I sighed and listened to his instructions on finding Strider’s room wondering if I’d ever be free to live my life again at this rate. I traveled the halls and turned the corners until I stood in front of his door. When my knock was answered, I found myself looking at the chieftain of the Rangers.

He looked as surprised to see me as I was to see him, as if he’d been expecting me. I kept my face expressionless as I entered. “I’m not here long,” I told him. “I came with news.” Since you didn’t stay to find out for yourself, I thought spitefully.

“My charge was to come here,” he replied as if sensing my resentment. “I regret leaving you all and the town behind. I would not if the need to be here hadn’t been more pressing.” He went to stand near the window once more and gazed out of it as if waiting for something. “If you’re here and unwounded after these last few days then I can only assume Archet was saved?”

“Mostly burned to the ground,” I said brusquely. “The Captain died. His son is in charge there, now.” Strider’s face grew briefly sad before it firmed once more. “The hobbits were sent home to the Shire and safety. I imagine they passed through Bree at the same time you arrived here. I’m surprised you didn’t see them.”

The Ranger made a soft noise. “My attention has been focused on a different hobbit, I’m afraid.”

“Mr. Baggins, you’ve said,” I continued. “Cob killed the Captain. Atli, Brackenbrook’s son, and I killed Cob and his men and saved as many as we could.”

He nodded. “That’s good, then. I knew you would be strong enough to help them. It’s why I freed you from the Blackwold cell along with the others.” He then admitted, “Other than the fact they had you there and nobody needed to be their captive given their associations. One of the Nine haunted the place. It may have done worse than kill you had I left you there. Amdir…” He trailed off.

My tone sharpened. “He was taken by a red-robed figure in Archet. It looked like the one in black, but…”

Strider sat up straighter and his gaze on me became bladed. I suddenly felt like stepping back from him at the intensity of his gaze and the unexpected surge of intimidation he put off. “A Cargul,” he growled, his jaw tightening. “I should have realized the Rider would have a minion on hand to deal with what it couldn’t.”

“He went willingly,” I continued despite the slight shock of Strider’s steely side coming forth. “It told him to come and he answered as if it were his master.” Strider’s face turned mournful in that moment, guilty, and it surprised me as much as it angered me. “You knew…” I began.

He cut me off. “I knew,” he curtly responded. “I had hoped, however, that he might last until after the battle. That the kingsfoil would give him the strength he needed to fight the evil coursing through him long enough for me to send someone to him who could help him defeat it or…”

“Or dispatch him if not,” I finished for him. “What happened to him?” I wanted to know. I could clearly see the man’s pale features in my mind, looking more and more like he was dying. “I thought his death was close, the way he seemed.”

“And resented me for abandoning him along with the rest of you, without explanation,” he agreed. He didn’t make it an accusation. “I resent myself for having to do so. As his chieftain, it was my duty to be the one aiding him or ending him.” He turned his gaze back to the window once more. “It’s worse than death, once someone has been struck by a Morgul wrought blade. Boromir, son of Denethor, many years past was struck by one and lived a life of pain that shortened his life. He didn’t become like the Cargul or their masters. Amdir’s wound was shallow.” He fell silent for a moment.

I took that moment to speak again. “He’s been killing the Rangers around Bree.”

Strider stilled and his hands clenched for a moment. “Tell me.”

I gave him the information I knew about the situation and how Amdir had been one step ahead of me each time. When I finished, Strider took a deep breath and released it. “Your tidings are grim. While the Blackwolds have been broken, Amdir’s escape bodes ill. He must be stopped before it is too late.”

“Do you want me to wait here and watch for Mr. Baggins while you deal with Amdir?” I asked. It isn’t my problem, I reminded myself. Not my bard; not my song.

Strider shook his head and my frustration mounted. He looked at me with a slight smile. “I have to rely on you, Morchandir, though you are neither a Ranger nor eager to become involved with these issues. For that, I do apologize. Know that we won’t be alone in this. I’ll have two other Rangers accompany us.” The only two left alive in this place? I wondered privately.

He nodded once to himself. “Yours isn’t the only news to come to me. The dwarves and elves to the west have sent news of troubles, too, involving a dwarf clan called the Dourhands. They’ve allied themselves with an old leader long dead and brought to life by Sauron’s dark magic.” He looked to the window once again as he explained how the Dourhand lord had come to Bree, how the Captain of the Nine was almost certainly behind these troubles, and that the Rangers had been watching a Blackwold camp to the east of Bree where Strider felt sure that both Amdir and the dwarf-lord could be found. He told me to prepare myself and meet him at nightfall to attack the camp.

That night, Strider split our group into two with the order that none could leave alive for the good of Middle Earth. It was the best thing he had said to me since our arrival. The Ranger I had been paired with was named Torthann. Our mission was to find Amdir and destroy him while Strider and Lenglinn found another way into the camp, because of course that was how it would be. Any goodwill I had begun feeling for Strider curdled inside me – his man had turned evil and, yet again, he stepped back from responsibility to do something else.

As Torthann and I entered through the front gates, Blackwolds fled from it in terror, saying something about “things” and a mad dwarf. We fought our way into the camp and Torthann sensed the darkness and source of the brigands’ fear to the south. We arrived to see a richly dressed dwarf kill a Blackwold after questioning him unsuccessfully, apparently searching for us. The dwarf raised the dead to fight us and departed further into the camp.

The dead. It was one thing to fight living Blackwolds but quite another to fight skeletal remains drawn from the earth. I knew, then, that we had to be dealing with true evil. Not even death saved someone from Sauron’s grasp. I felt my heart and soul shrink within me. Was this what would await me? Was this the fate that would await us all in the end? Even my Leith?

Torthann and I rested a few moments after we had dispatched the enemy. “‘Who was that dwarf and what power has he to command wights? That the Blackwolds were in terror of that creature is certain, but I still sense something greater still in these ruins. And where is Amdir? Perhaps beyond that gate,” the Ranger told me. No, I wanted to reply, no more. I’m done here. I’m going home to my son and becoming a blacksmith or merchant. I don’t want to see what’s worse than that dwarf!

And yet, when the Ranger pressed on, I followed. If you don’t help them now, it will spread, I realized. Like a disease. How long until it reaches Lake-town? How much closer must Angmar be to Rhovanion to constitute a threat?

I regretted my choice as soon as we finally came upon what we sought. Amdir lay on an altar surrounded by Black Riders and the evil dwarf lord. Torthann and I both lost our nerves as a rolling wave of dread and terror threatened to consume us. All that we could do was cower before the creatures as they ordered Amdir to take up the crimson robes of a Cargul, called the Foresworn, and the one-time Ranger did so. Strider and Lenglinn appeared at that point to aid us as the Riders departed along with the dwarf.

We ended Amdir and the Blackwold servant who had been ordered to kill us alongside him. Afterward, Torthann led me back to Strider, both mourning and resigned at having killed one of his brethren but allowing him some peace. Thinking of the dwarf’s powers, however, I couldn’t agree with his sentiment. Death didn’t seem to free us of evil’s reach.

Back at the Pony, in his room, Strider informed me that the creatures were called Nazgul and that he had no idea what the dwarf named himself or why he might ally with Sauron. He had to leave for the East Road to wait for Mr. Baggins, as he felt he was in danger now, and I couldn’t help but agree. He asked me to head to Combe. Or, in my case, head back to Combe. This time, though, I spoke with Constable Underhill and together, we discovered the dwarf-lord’s presence. The brigands had left the service of Angmar and were paying for it now. Underhill couldn’t catch the dwarf, for which I was actually grateful. I had no intention of dying that day.

I returned to Strider with the news only to find him offering me even more alarming news in turn: the Riders had attacked the Pony looking for Strider’s friends from the Shire. Four hobbits, not just one. He couldn’t tell me why the Riders were so interested in them, but he did say he had more need of my help.

“‘While both you and I have seen five Nazgûl, their true number is nine. Before I can take my charges beyond Bree, I must know where the other four are hiding,” he explained. My mouth was open to reply “good luck with that, then,” when he continued. “‘Would you travel to the west and speak to Lenglinn?” He referred to his hobbit charge as Mr. Underhill with a level look at me that I knew meant I should do the same. I hadn’t exactly met the hobbit but I felt no compulsion to use his real name. False names weren’t unknown to me, after all.

This was when I received the letter I mentioned before asking me to travel to Adso’s Camp. Time may have been of the essence, but I had been offered some information on new skills in my profession – especially when I was told by the so-called trainer that I was a burglar of no small skill, but that was hardly enough. It was a hobbit who offered them, no less, and his goal for me was simple: I had to help him keep brigands from stealing mushrooms from a farmer named Maggot.

I don’t know that I would want mushrooms from a man with the last name of the most disgusting living thing in the world, but I’m not a hobbit, either. Atherol Took assured me that these mushrooms were the best in the world after he greeted me by name. I don’t know that I like being this well-known. It goes against burglar code to me. Regardless, Took said that brigands don’t deserve the mushrooms like we do and we needed to stop them. Sigh. Sure. If it means I can learn new skills to use, it sounds fairly simple.

Atherol had no intentions of letting the mushrooms fall into Men’s hands. This surprised me given I’m a Man and he asked for my help stealing the bloody things. I did so and dispatched the brigands, avoided the dogs, and proved to him that I was more than an adequate burglar, thank you very much. “They’ll fear your shadow from now on, if they have any sense, for you are quite skilled with both of your hands!” he complimented me once we were back at Adso’s.

I couldn’t quite get away yet, though. I was approached by more than one person in the camp about needed things, and once again, brigands kept coming up as the reason for it. Even Adso himself said it was due to Bill Ferny, who he owed money to so that they would leave Adso and his men alone, and I spent no end of time running money to the man. After he betrayed Adso and said he wanted more, Adso had me remove several brigands from some of the farmland nearby and, while I was out, stood up to one of Ferny’s men. While that occurred, other brigands made off with Adso’s food and bullied some of the men working for him. Once more, I went out and defeated brigands to return the goods to Adso. When I got back, Adso pointed out the man he’d stood up to was named Dirk Hawthorn and he set up camp to the east of them and threatened to come back with enough men to raze Adso’s worksite to the ground. I was annoyed enough already, but I had never been fond of bullies, given they’d always tormented me growing up. I handled the business.

I shouldn’t have. Of course, Adso asked me to face down Ferny’s right hand and enforcer, Brunmor, at the Outlaw’s Haven given Ferny had sent him a message. Once I’d stabbed and shanked my way through to handle this problem and returned to Adso, I finished a few other errands for his men, one that took me into the Old Forest nearby and let me meet a breathtakingly beautiful woman at a stream, and settled myself back on my mission for Strider. In fact, I borrowed a horse from Adso with the promise to return it once I was done in Buckland and returning his way so that I could finally move faster than a walk.

I arrived at Lenglinn’s camp to find him laid low but alive. “Aragorn has sent aid!” the Ranger greeted me.

“Aragorn?” I asked with a shake of my head. “Strider did. Who is…”

“Strider is only one of his names,” Lenglinn assured me. “His given name is Aragorn.” He motioned at me. “But no more of that for now.” He looked grim. ” Nazgûl, four more, were in Buckland. They rode swiftly to the east, upon black steeds. I was foolish enough to stand in their way, and they ran me down.”

My hands immediately went toward my visible knives and he shook his head. “I wasn’t stabbed,” he said with a calming gesture. “Not like Amdir.” He continued with, “I will heal in time, but the Riders have left a threat in their wake that must be dealt with. I must ask for your help.”

I slowly relaxed. “Strider sent me to ask you about those four and their whereabouts,” I explained. “I don’t know why I’m helping you or him at this point, but I’m willing to at least listen. What is it you need me to do?” It’s because those things are involved, I realized. It’s because you know they’re evil and don’t want it getting out so that it hurts your son.

He spoke of the crebain in the area watching him. They’re the Enemy’s eyes, I was told. Blinding the Enemy, Sauron, would only help the hobbit and Strider in their cause, whatever it happened to be. I could understand it: if you can’t see, you can’t act to hinder anything. You react only. It made me even more curious about what could possibly be so important about this hobbit.

Once I came back from killing crows, I had to agree with Lenglinn that they weren’t the same kind as found in other areas. He wasn’t done with me yet, though. “I must ask that you do something in Buckland, as it was their Horn-call that alerted me to the presence of the Nazgûl.”

I frowned. “Why do we need to worry about what’s happened in Buckland?” I countered. “Mr. Underhill is with Strider.”

He blinked in confusion much as I had earlier with the name Aragorn. “You say that Underhill is with Aragorn? I know of no Underhills… I was sent to watch over a hobbit named Baggins. I must assume that is whom Aragorn spoke of. That he is safe is welcome news, for my fears are somewhat allayed.” He explained how he had been run down upon racing out onto the road after hearing the horn sound in Buckland. He had meant to stop the four Riders to no avail.

“You’re quite lucky that they didn’t run you through like Amdir,” I noted with a narrowing of my eyes.

Lenglinn made a face. “Yes, yes, scold me if you must. But listen all the same.” He told me that Baggins had a home in Crickhollow, in Buckland, and the Riders had been there. Though he had been relieved that they hadn’t laid hold of Baggins, they could’ve learned something about him from his home before riding to Bree over Lenglinn. “If you learn anything there, return to me. What news you can bring me may help determine the movements of the Nazgûl.” He mentioned Baggins’ first name, though I’m not sure he meant to, as Frodo. Frodo Baggins. I filed the name away just in case.

I shrugged slightly and mounted my borrowed horse to continue down the road a very short way into Buckland. This, at least, I soothed myself, won’t require my life to be in peril. Everything is long gone at this point.

As I rode through the community, I occasionally asked for where Crickhollow might be and Master Baggins’ home. I found it as Lenglinn had described, surrounded by tall hedges, and a hobbit within who called himself Fredegar Bolger. I startled him, though. Once he had calmed, though apparently not much given how he babbled, I offered my name and he offered his. “Those Riders you spoke of, ” I asked, “did they do anything to you? Ask you anything?”

“Did they learn anything from me? Well, those Riders came busting into the house, but I had already slipped out the back way. Not a thing did they get from me,” he answered. He wrung his hands and his voice shook. Not enough to keep him from talking as if I weren’t about to say something, though. ” ‘When the Shirriffs came, they made me tell them about Frodo and the others going off into the Old Forest, but I didn’t say a thing about the Enemy’s Ring…” I blinked and cocked my head at him. He noticed and stammered, ” ‘Oh, dear! I mean…I…”

We both heard it at the same time. “What is that? It sounds like crows….” he said with a frown, turning in the direction of the noise. Even as he pointed out, shielding his eyes, that they were getting awfully close, I knew what they were there for. Crebain. Like the ones I’d just killed; the eyes of Sauron! My blades appeared in my hands as soon as they started falling from the sky to attack so that I could fell them with my thrown knives. I had no arrow or crossbow with bolts. I had only just retrieved them from the corpses when Bolger cried, “Oh no! More at coming!” A second wave? I threw as accurately as I could. Thankfully, there weren’t a great number of them either time.

I was cleaning the knives and replacing them when Bolger told me, “You didn’t get all of them, though! Some flew off into the Old Forest. I hope they don’t come back!” I looked up at him and then at the Forest and clenched my jaw. The same direction that Baggins and his friends went with the Enemy’s ring. I wasn’t sure what Sauron wanted with a piece of his jewelry, but I would have to let Lenglinn know before I could set off into the Old Forest. I knew I would have to if I wanted to find the two remaining crows and get rid of them.

I rode back to the Ranger and explained everything that had happened to him, including Bolger’s mention of the ring. Lenglinn paled at it. “Are you sure that’s what he said?”

“Positive,” I said with a nod. “What’s so spe…” I began.

Lenglinn interrupted me. “The Enemy’s Ring! It is no wonder Aragorn was so secretive as to why the Enemy was seeking Baggins!” He rested back against the ground and gazed up at the blue sky above for several long moments. “It has come to this.”

I squinted at him. “What is this ring, then?”

Lenglinn looked up at me incredulously. “You really don’t know?”

I spread my hands with a sweet smile. “I’m a street rat who can barely read. Educate me, oh Ranger.”

He shook his head a moment before explaining it. “The One Ring. Sauron’s Ring. The Ring of Power.” He waited to see if any of the names had set off recognition in me.

They had. My brows lifted. “That ring? The one from the old stories?”

“That he made to control the other rings given to the races of Middle-Earth, yes,” Lenglinn agreed. “Lost after Isildur’s death and now, apparently, found again.”

“And carried by Mr. Underhill.” I looked toward the Old Forest not far from us. “I thought it was supposed to be the size of a gold coin and blazing with fire?”

“It’s deceptive enough to hide for hundreds of years, waiting.” He lifted himself up again with effort. “If the crebain heard Fredegar’s words, the Enemy will know for certain that the Ring is no longer in the Shire, and all will be lost!

“Worse still. They went the same way that Underhill and his friends did. They may find them in there,” I pointed out. “They have to be brought down.” The Ring of Power, I marveled, slightly terrified. It’s here. Sauron is stirring. The Riders are riding around. Evil things are afoot.

The Ranger grunted. “Finding those birds in the Old Forest will not be a simple task. I would ask that you return to Aragorn in Bree and seek his counsel on how to find these foul birds.”

“What can he do?” I countered perhaps a touch sharply as the first touches of despair entered me. How can we fight against all of this? They barely won the first time against Sauron and his ring, and it was only through a bit of luck from Isildur, according to the stories.

“I don’t know,” Lenglinn offered wearily. “But I’m out of ideas. Simply riding in willy-nilly won’t help anyone. The Forest is a place that people get lost in easily, Morchandir. My chieftain is knowledgeable where I am not. Return to him and see what he has to say. That’s all that we can do right now.”

I had no choice but to return to Strider at the Pony. He seemed even more anxious to get out of the place than when I had left. After giving him Lenglinn’s news and my own experiences, Strider sighed heavily and agreed with Lenglinn’s words as well as the difficulty in finding the crebain. He then said there might be hope in the form of someone named Forn to the dwarves, and Iarwain Ben-adar to the elves. It was the last name, the one Men knew him as, that struck me: Orald. I felt my eyes widen when he said it. “He lives in the Old Forest?” I asked, awe-struck.

Strider seemed slightly amused by my reaction. “He does, Morchandir.” Tom Bombadil was the name he used presently. He offered directions to Bombadil’s house and noted that the safety of his charges mean more, presently, than anything else.

“I understand,” I replied. Things had begun making sense to me now that I knew the truth. I found I couldn’t quite resent Strider after finding out what made these hobbits, and one in particular, so important that he had abandoned his duties to his men and, I knew, probably went against the desires of his own heart when it came to helping those around him in need. He is a good man, I told myself. Or at least, he’s far better than I.

Not knowing how to proceed, I returned to Buckland. Even as I moved through the little town, however, cows on rooftops and missing children distracted me long before I ever reached the entrance to the Old Forest. Even then, I had hobbits asking for help. By the time I finally started looking for the Withywindle, I had become so lost and turned around that I seemingly found every other place but where I wanted. I followed the river once I discovered it and, after fighting with a tree (long story), I stood at the bottom of a hill atop which a cottage stood. I could hear the sound of a man’s singing from somewhere above. “What did I just get myself into?” I asked myself softly as I spotted the ancient and legendary Tom Bombadil… skipping around like a child with a very, very long beard. That can’t be the person I’m here to see, I told myself in growing horror. That cannot be Orald. Did… something happen to him?

Setting myself for the ascent, I trudged up the path praying I hadn’t come here in vain and the oldest thing in creation hadn’t lost his mind like a doddering grandfather.