Tag: Fanfic

Sleep for me that night became fitful despite my bath and food. I kept dreaming of vaguely threatening things that I couldn’t remember upon waking yet kept waking me all the same. The next morning, I found a note waiting for me from Gandalf when I went down to breakfast. It read, simply,

I frowned down at it as I had my porridge and fruit. The wizard had said all that he needed to say the night before, I thought? I scraped every last bit of the bowl clean before I made my way upstairs with his note in a pocket. I knocked, opened the door at his call, and stepped inside warily. “I didn’t expect you to still be here after our conversation last night,” I greeted him.

He motioned for me to close the door and I did so. “Morchandir,” he said with a nod. “I realized I had been hasty in my dismissal of you. I have little time left before I must leave and so must you. I needed to give you some information that will aid you with your next steps. What will they be?” He motioned slightly. “Will you travel to the north or to the east, now?”

I made a sound of thought. I hadn’t slept well partially because of how that question had weighed on my mind. “East,” I decided uncertainly. “Though I’m not sure who to speak to or where to begin. This isn’t my strong suit, heroism. I’m more comfortable sneaking and stabbing and stealing.”

“Those can be honorable enough pursuits when turned to the proper causes,” he informed me. “If it’s to the east that you’ve set your mind, then here is what I will say to you.” He moved through the room almost restlessly for a few moments of silence as he gathered his thoughts. “You have done much good for the people of Bree-land, but the Shadow out of Angmar spreads far and wide,” he began. “I have learned from Gwaihir the Windlord that another of my order has found corruption in the Lone-lands, east of Bree. It may even be related to the dangers you encountered in the Great Barrow.”

I lifted my head slightly. I didn’t know who Gwaihir might have been but I knew the Lone-lands were where I had to head if I traveled to the east. “Lone-lands,” I echoed. “So, is that where the name Eriador came from?”

He seemed amused. “I was under the impression you had little education.”

I shrugged. “I’ve been a place or two,” I replied brusquely. “You mentioned your order, though. Another wizard? How can I find him?”

He chuckled somewhat grimly. “Unfortunately, Radagast is given to wandering and will be difficult to find.” Not at all like yourself, I wanted to point out but held my tongue. “I would ask that you enlist the assistance of the Rangers in finding his location. There is one here in Bree-land, Saeradan, who will be able to aid you.”

“You mean one left after Amdir went on his killing spree.” I then shook my head at his scowl. “I can’t be that unkind. Lenglinn still remains to the west of Bree recuperating, I’m sure.”

He seemed to soften slightly at my verbal step back. “Head out of Bree through the West-gate and turn north along the Greenway. Seek Saeradan at his cabin on the east side of the Greenway across from Thornley’s Work Site,” he instructed. “Saerdan is not a young green Ranger, which means he’s capable and wiser than you may believe. Rangers don’t live to old age without incurring that sort of knowledge, much as elves and other races.”

“Maybe not dwarves or hobbits,” I muttered.

“Indeed,” Gandalf acknowledged. “Their wisdom is oft hidden or disguised. We far too often expect it in the form of elvish parables and the thoughts of wizards such as myself.” He motioned away the train of conversation. “However, back to the matter at hand. Having enlisted the aid of Strider, the continued defense of Bree-land and its borders falls to Saeradan. I think he will be amenable to helping you, Morchandir. Ask him for aid in this matter.”

“Saerdan,” I noted. “And Radagast the Brown.” I heaved a sigh. “Are you really certain it has to be me?”

Gandalf shook his head. “I would rather a more willing participant aid us, but the times are dire, and you are capable. There is nobody else I can ask. Though you may find yourself reluctant now, rest assured you will come to want this with time.”

“If you say so,” I replied, eyes rolling.

“Go, young Morchandir. Time is of the essence and I must be gone to aid Strider and the hobbits.”

He didn’t have to tell me twice. I turned with a goodbye that I knew to be more final this time and exited his quarters. I waved to Butterbur on the way out of the Pony and counted out my remaining coin in the hopes I might afford even a cheap horse. I found I couldn’t if I wanted to keep money for my next meal, wherever that might be, or a bed that didn’t have lice or manure in the straw.

Only three options remained to me, then: steal a horse, burgle coin, or come by the money everything in a legitimate fashion. I didn’t really have a desire to run through Bree avoiding the constables and their men – and, to be honest, the little fame that I’d received by putting the old spirit to bed in his tomb again felt strangely satisfying enough that I didn’t want to ruin it by becoming a wanted criminal in the town.

Pocketing my coins once more, I turned to the left and made my way through the Market Gate toward the Boar Fountain a bit further on. Horses clopped by on shod hooves, sometimes pulling wagons full of goods, and I easily avoided them. My destination was the task board with its many requests for various items. I could get good money for filling these orders. The work might not be as terrible as mining or looting tombs in the Barrow-Downs, either.

A posted paper on a nearby column of wood grabbed my attention before I reached the board, however. When I took a closer look out of curiosity, I found the following written on the bill:

“Greetings to you, friend! Have the delicious smells emanating on a hungry day from Mandrake’s Finest Stews and Sauces caused you to desire that meal-time was nearer? If so, you know the high quality of Sig Mandrake’s preparations and know what is at stake, should they be hindered.

“Sig Mandrake has a need for interested parties to help him with the preparation of such a stew. Speak with him at his shop here in Bree, east of the Mud-gate, for the details.”

My nose wrinkled, but the truth remained plain: I could very easily make some coin by catching this man’s turtles for his soup. I might even be able to get a free meal from it as well. I had very little time to waste; however, I wouldn’t be able to ride far without a horse and some gear at this point, if I truly did mean to take up Gandalf’s offer of heroism. The idea called to me with a whisper at the back of my mind. Maybe I wasn’t the best choice; to be honest, I was the least suitable for the job, given my proclivities and background. Yet, there in my mind stood my son and my erstwhile foster parents proudly welcoming me home with the entirety of Lake-town taking notice. My ex-wife and her new lover would never best the stories told about me or the reputation I had carved out for myself helping to save the world. If she came back, I could turn her away from our son and myself.

It was a beautiful future. The most important part of it, for me, would be giving Leith the ability to walk without shame and taunts thrown at him for his father’s line of work. His father bloody well saved you all, I would growl at them and their guardians. How dare you repay him by treating his son this way?

I snatched off one of the posted bills and smirked behind my mask as I turned from the task board. There would be time for that, once I collected these turtles. First, however, I would need to speak to this man and find out what I would be getting in return for my efforts.

The Mud Gate was a familiar enough name for me, but I was no native of Bree to know where it might be from this side of the town. I had been there once already to attend Albra Lowbanks after the hobbit requested for me to come to her for training, after all. A few queries as to its location, and finally a flash of the bill, had one of the natives of the town offering me an amused expression. “Oh, Mandrake’s Finest Stews and Sauces is where you’re headed. Thought about doing that, myself, but it’s a bit too dangerous out there for the likes of me these days.” He pointed down the cobbled street to one side that curved off to the right. “You’ll be wanting to go that way. Just follow the street. It’s right smack in the middle of the Mud Gate, Ironmonger’s Gate, and inside the Stone Quarter. High Bridge and High Stair are nearby too, in case you’re interested. Look for the hedge fencing.”

I set off and followed the bend of the road until it passed beneath a stone bridge. The High Bridge, I realized as I looked upward at it. Things began to seem oddly familiar to me, as if I had seen this area before…

My gaze floated from the bridge to the hedge fencing so common in Bree and I halted abruptly. Beyond the fence stood another one that I had been through once already. Within stood the Lowbanks’ Estate. Part of me suddenly wanted to wander in and surprise the hobbit with my presence, uncalled for, but I shook my head and studied the buildings instead. One of these was where I needed to go right now. At least I knew for certain I had come to the right place.

A woman dressed in bits of armor exited from a multi-story home while I stood there watching. I glanced at the sack she carried to the rest of her and then finally to the door from where she’d emerged. It seemed to be the right place, unless murder and mayhem had become commonplace here, so I headed to the door. I knocked before opening it and stepping within just in case. It wasn’t locked, which was a good sign, and nobody screamed at me to get out of their house – also quite heartening.

A brown-haired man stood sweeping the floor of the main room near the hearth. A large bed stood nearby, and a rug stretched over the floor. My feet stuttered to a halt in the archway as uncertainty overtook me. “Ummm…” I began, shuffling slightly to back out once more.

He looked up, blinked at my masked features, and seemed confused. “Are you well?” he greeted me worriedly. “Whyever do you have on that mask, sir?” He then looked even more confused. “It IS sir, isn’t it?”

“How many women have you met who are this height and have a voice as deep as mine?” I countered instantly, hands moving to my hips. I towered over the majority of Men and even Elves. “I should be asking if you’re the one who’s well!”

He cleared his throat uncomfortably and leaned the broom against the wall nearby. “You are here about the turtle soup, I presume?” he asked as politely as he could given how awkward things had become. At my nod, he continued. “I have had callers all day! Perhaps I prepared too many of those notices. My hobbit-friend has been very eager about posting them, I must say.”

“Hobbits seem to be very eager by nature when it comes to food-based items,” I agreed. “The name’s Morchandir. I was told your shop was here, but this… doesn’t really look like a shop?” People have come in all day, I thought with less enthusiasm. Will there even be a single turtle in a five-league radius of this place? Is that where all those wights came from? People trying to catch turtles in the Barrow-downs’ swamps?

“Not yet,” he agreed. “I have hopes that it will, though!” He brightened considerably at the thought. “I have come into possession of an order for a large batch of turtle soup. Normally this would not be a problem, but the desired recipe is most specific about the sort of turtles that can be used.”

“There’s a difference?” I asked, bewildered. “What-“

“Not just any turtle will do,” Sig continued as if by rote. I wondered how many times he had said this exact thing over the course of the day. “They must be tiny turtles, and these are found only at very specific locations.”

I lifted a hand to rub at the back of my neck as I rolled my head around. “Tiny turtles,” I echoed dubiously. “Baby turtles?”

He shook his head. “No, tiny ones. They don’t grow terribly large.” He motioned at me. “You wish to join the ranks of the many, many adventurers who have agreed to help me with this?” I sighed and nodded, otherwise silent. It was fast and easy money. He seemed to notice the tone of that sigh. “Good, I suppose. Tiny turtles, like those I need, can be found south of Bree, along the northern bank of Halecatch Lake.” He chuckled. “You will see many other folk trying to catch turtles for me, I expect, so good luck trying to find any of the small creatures I need!”

I grimaced despite the fact he couldn’t see it. “I think I might surprise you. Do you have a bag?” I hooked a thumb back over my shoulder at the door. “I noticed the last person left with one. I don’t suppose I can carry an armload of baby-“

“Tiny,” he corrected.

“TINY,” I emphasized, “turtles back here without losing them all.”

He took up a burlap sack from a dwindled pile and offered it to me. “Or getting bitten repeatedly,” he agreed with such cheer that I had to rethink my urgent need for money for a few moments. I wound up taking the sack and turned to leave. “Halecatch Lake?”

“Yes.”

“I’ll return shortly.” There was no way in Eriador that I would let anyone clean out that lake of tiny turtles if it wasn’t me. This bag won’t be big enough, I vowed privately. I had half a mind to stop and ask for a second sack but felt it might be too cocky. I might have an ego about some things; however, this wasn’t one of them.

It took me a bit of time to get back to the Boar Fountain and head south to the gate some distance away. When I set out on the road, I passed a large camp full of armored individuals and merchants who seemed intent on staying exactly where they were rather than moving into the town proper. Tents, a campfire, goods in crates – surely, I thought as I kept moving past, it might be more comfortable in a building?

The sight of a large lake sparkling in the sunlight to the southwest drew my attention and sent me over hill and dale toward it. How many lakes surround Bree? I wondered as I traveled. Surely none to the south but this one? I heard the sound of hoofbeats passing me a little way to the right heading in the same direction. This is going to get ugly, I realized. I am not about to kill people over tiny turtles. I then had to amend, At least not if they don’t try to kill me first.

I found myself looking at the lake from a higher elevation shortly thereafter. Horses dotted the landscape here and there. People did, too. Some of them had already begun the ride back with full sacks of what had to be tiny turtles. A pair of dwarves wrestled on the ground near a pony as the turtles they had caught in their sacks fled slowly back toward the solace of the water. “Note to self,” I muttered under my breath as I began my descent, “stay away from angry little men.”

The northern bank, Mandrake had said, but people had fanned out all around the lake in their fierce, competitive needs to catch the most turtles. I tapped one index finger against my thigh as I contemplated where to go for my own search when a woman’s voice spoke nearby. “If I were you, I would try a little farther to the northeast.”

I shifted my attention to the left. Shapely, dark haired, and dressed in leathers, she had a bow, quiver full of arrows, and a sword at her side as well as a hunting knife. A Hunter, I thought warily. “Have you come to claim some to take in?” I asked her after a moment.

She smirked and I saw that a scar pulled at her lips. “No, actually. I’m just here to watch them and laugh at how they flounder around until they get lucky.” She jerked her chin toward the general lake area. “There’s no challenge in this for me.” She turned her bemused gaze to me. “Why? Are you afraid I’ll help you and then whack you over the head with a sack of turtles to take your loot?”

“Never been whacked with a sack of turtles,” I replied drolly. “Remind me to get into trouble that way some day.”

She laughed lightly and nodded slightly toward the northeast. “Come this way. I doubt there are many left out there. I’ll help you find them.” She turned and made her way off, saying over her shoulder, “Unless you want to flounder around like the rest of them all day and come out of it wet and miserable.”

I strode after her. “I got enough of that in the Barrow-downs and wading the Withywindle,” I replied with a roll of my eyes. “I might like to stay dry at least for a full day, if possible.”

I followed her around the northern edge of the lakeshore for a little bit before she spoke once again. “They like to rest and catch the sun on the shore. All of this flailing and splashing around drives them into the deeper waters.” She paused and sank into a crouch to point at marks along the muddy bank. “See these? They don’t move too far up. That way when predators come for them, they just push off into the water again. They’re much faster there than on land. It’s why you have to wait for them to sun themselves.” She looked up at the other people around the lake with disdain. “And why you should find a place to have a nap for a while until the activity dies down and they feel safe again.”

I frowned. “But we just got here,” I tried to argue. She lifted her hand to stop me. “Listen, Longshanks, I’ve been out here since dawn. It’s almost the heat of the day right now. There are fewer people than an hour ago and the quarry won’t be coming out anytime soon due to the heat being too much for them. Give it another hour, maybe two, and the ranks of people will thin out. They won’t catch anything. They’ll think there isn’t anything left to catch. It will be too hot for their tempers and they’ll be too hungry to work through it. Too wet, too. Tempers and a shortage of prey items will have most of them calling it quits. The ones you have to worry about then are the Hunters, like me, who want to keep going.” She examined the shoreline for a long moment. “But I’m not seeing anyone who acts like they know anything out here at this point, so you’re safe.” She turned her attention to me again, head tipped up to meet my gaze with her own. “It gets quiet, it gets a bit cooler, and the turtles show back up where the activity is NOT.”

I looked at the lakeshore again. “Noted,” I said in slight distraction. She waved for my attention and received it. “What?”

“You’re going to want some of that shade over there,” she told me. “Don’t get too close to the cones there.” She pointed them out. “Neekers live in them and they get territorial around their nests.”

I squinted at them. “Can their shells be valuable?”

She gave me a flat look. “Maybe. It depends on if anyone needs them. Didn’t you check the board before coming out here?” She shook her head. “Nevermind that. Get set up in the shade over there and wait it out. I don’t know how many of these turtles are left out here, but you’ll get to take some of them in if you do what I’ve told you.” She flipped her hand in a lazy wave as she began to walk off. “Good luck.”

“Mm. You as well.” I watched her leaving, aware we hadn’t even exchanged names, and then headed toward the patch of shade she had pointed out to me. My innate wariness told me to expect some kind of betrayal. The rest of me countered that she had no reason to do so and that I would be far more likely to betray her instead. I settled down with my back against the trunk of the tree, lifted my hood to cover my head above the mask, and got as comfortable as I could to nap while sitting on my burlap sack. A thief might lift it from my sleeping form were I to carry it, but they most certainly couldn’t take it from beneath me without tearing it apart first.

Time passed in a slightly hazy fashion in the way of the dozing. I could hear the clattering and splashing of the others as if in a dream that grew fainter and fainter. Soon, I did awaken fully with only the sounds of crickets and buzzing insects to welcome me. The angle of light and the shadow the tree cast told me that some time had passed. The heat had lessened. Waves lapped the shoreline in gentle ways. I casually, quietly, leaned up and twisted around to have a look at Halecatch Lake to make sure that I had heard things properly.

I had. The nearest people were halfway around the lake. I might not have a lot of time before the next wave of would-be Hunters came swarming the shores again. I finally got to my feet, dusted off my trousers, and took up my sack once again. Only then did I pad silently toward the banks as if sneaking up on someone – because I was. I spotted several turtles lying along the shoreline, spaced out here and there, resting just as the unknown Hunter had said they would. I could even see their tiny eyes were closed, though “tiny turtles” was not what I would call them. I had expected turtles the size of coins or even a small ball of twine. These turtles were the size of pumpkins and full of spikes. You aren’t turtles, I told them silently as I approached and opened my bag. You’re a really large morningstar.

I had no idea how to grab the thing and put it in the sack. I decided to take the mouth of the bag in both hands, plunge the thing over the turtle, and scoop it, mud and all, into the burlap. It worked, thankfully, but the thing hissed and struggled inside so that I frowned at it. It occurred to me only then that I wouldn’t be able to repeat the gesture with the next turtle given the first weighed down the sack too much. Looking at the next one sunning itself a bit down from me, I wondered how in Mordor I’d be able to grab it and keep the first turtle inside the bag.

The idea I had sounded idiotic at best, but it was the best I could come up with at this point. I retreated to the tree and searched for a fallen branch sturdy enough to use as leverage. This time, when I approached my next turtle victim, I slowly extended my stick to its tail end and gave it a quick flick. It didn’t fly farther up the bank like I’d thought and hoped; however, it did land on its back as a shell alone. I stared at it for a long moment before opening the bag. Checking on the one inside, which had remained silent the whole time, I found that it, too, had pulled itself within its shell. They slid into the water when startled, but if they couldn’t do so, they hid within their hard exteriors. The Hunter had neglected to tell me that part.

I picked up the turtle and put it into the bag with the first. I then proceeded to creep stealthily up to the others that had settled along the shoreline during my nap. With a flip of the stick, they pulled their soft bits inside their shells, and I captured them. Six of them filled the sack with just enough room for me to tie it off and I knew I was done.

I was halfway back to Bree’s south gate when I heard a familiar voice say, “Congratulations, Longshanks. You figured it out.” I looked up into the lower branches of a tree to find the Hunter waiting for me there with a look of amusement on her face.

“No thanks to you,” I replied gruffly. “You could’ve told me about them protecting themselves in such an easy way.”

“And ruin my entertainment? Pssh.” She lounged on the branch in a feline manner. “How many did you fit in your bag? Four?”

“Six.” I couldn’t keep the hint of pride from entering my voice.

She slapped her thigh a couple of times to applaud me, given her other hand stayed beneath her chin. “Very good! A mighty haul!”

I rolled my eyes. “Mockery doesn’t suit you.”

She snorted. “Who said I mocked you? You have a full sack when others only caught one if they were fortunate.” She grinned toothily down at me. “Though, I admit watching you flipping them over with a stick made my day. You do know you could have just picked them up and they would have tucked in, don’t you?”

I felt my brief pride vanish as I stared up at her. “No, actually. I was told they bit, and they’re covered in spines, besides. Why would I think I could just sneak up on them and pick them up?” I hefted the sack slightly. “If only a Hunter had been around to inform me of how to catch them properly.”

“Hey, you still caught them,” she retorted. “Go get them to their buyer before they overheat and die. You won’t get paid much for them, then, Longshanks.”

“Morchandir,” I corrected her.

She paused and peered down at me a little more. “Oh? Banisher of the lost spirit in Bree? Pleased to meet you.” She made a little salute with one hand near her forehead that was so lazy I knew she hardly meant it. “Sorsha is my name.”

“Never heard of it.” I lifted my shoulders in a little shrug. “Though I don’t know of too many Hunters that are world-renowned, to be fair.”

She shook her head. “It doesn’t bother me. If I wanted to be famous, I would do things that would make me famous. But you?” She smirked. “You are going to be very famous if you don’t watch out. I can already tell.”

I set the bag of turtles over my shoulder. “And how is that? Magic?” I scoffed.

She poked her tongue out at me. “Hardly. Anyone who puts a spirit to rest without magic and is said to have helped Rangers out before that? Who shows up right around the time terrifying riders on black horses sweep through the town? Attack the Pony?”

I sighed. “I see your point.” I shifted the weight of the bag slightly. “I would love to stay and chat, but you were right – I need to get these things to their new owner if I want any kind of payment.” I started moving off. “Stay out of trouble.”

“Farewell, Longshanks!” she called after me too-sweetly.

Sorsha, I repeated to myself. “What kind of name is that? Elvish? Dwarvish? Did her parents even know how to speak properly when she was born?” I grumbled under my breath the entire way back to the gate.

It was late afternoon by the time I made it to Sig Mandrake’s so-called shop once more. I didn’t bother knocking this time, entirely aware that it wasn’t supposed to be a private home if he thought of it as a place of business, and strolled into the living area as if I owned the building itself. He sat at a table and looked up as I entered, brightening at the sight of the bag. “Ah! So, you’ve returned, Mor…” He faltered. “Mordir? Moridir?”

“Morchandir. And, yes, here are the turtles you wanted, though they aren’t very tiny,” I replied irritably as I set them down on the floor in front of me.

He rose from his seat and moved to the bag. He didn’t open it, but instead nudged it with one boot. “How many are there?”

I smirked. “Six.” When he glanced up at me sharply, I smirked even wider. “I don’t do anything by halves. You said I’d need luck to find any. I don’t like being challenged.”

His brows lifted. “It seems not.” He turned to go back to his table. These will do, these will do, Morchandir. I am waiting for more people to bring in turtles.”

My eyes went from him to the sack and then back to him again behind the mask. “How big is this soup pot going to be, anyway?”

He looked back at me as he got out a small pouch. “This is a very large order of turtle soup, and it will take many more turtles than I have received so far.” He opened the pouch. “Fortunately, it seems as if everyone in Bree is pitching in! It is a wonder there are still turtles to find!” He fished out some coins and sounded distracted as he did so. “I have not yet begun to prepare the soup. I am waiting until I have enough turtles for it.”

I pressed my lips together briefly. “So, you mentioned.” Quit stalling, I wanted to tell him impatiently. Did you not expect anyone to even bring you what you wanted? Not enough money to pay us all? I could feel my inner senses flaring up the longer that he took to pull his coins out to pay me. If you try to cheat me, I swear I’m taking these turtles right back to that bloody lake! I swore to myself as I waited.

He finally moved to me and I lifted my hand to receive his coins. I stared at what he gave me: one silver and 50 copper. “You have to be fooling me,” I murmured to myself.

Mandrake didn’t hear me as he walked away talking. “Actually….” He turned back to me with a bright smile. “You did good work out there, Morchandir. You made it back more quickly than a lot of these so-called adventurers. Perhaps you would be willing to help me with something else?”

I pocketed the money with the mask hiding my disgust in how little I had gotten for my efforts. “It depends on the payment,” I grated out.

“More of the same, I assure you!” he said confidently. “One of the Little Folk who lives up Staddle way sent word that he was eager to help me gather turtles for the turtle soup. Benegar Longbottom, he said his name was, and he’s been keeping the turtles he gathered for me in his uncle’s shed.”

I blinked slightly. Did I get overheated out there? I asked myself. Is this a hallucination? “He’s keeping them… where? In his uncle’s shed?”

He waved it off as if it were of no consequence. “Go to the village of Staddle and ask Grobo Dogwort if you can collect the turtles his nephew has gathered for me. Be sure to ask him in his house first; don’t just barge into his shed without asking.”

I sat back on my heels. “Did you just…” I began, meaning to call him out on the whole “barging in without asking” part given I had done exactly that to bring him his accursed turtles, but I decided to let it go. Shaking my head, I simply told him, “Fine. It may take me a bit, though. I don’t have a horse.”

“Oh. Well.” He paused a moment and then offered me another coin, this one gold. “See if that will get you a ride to Staddle. I’m sure Grobo or his nephew will give you something for taking the turtles off their hands as well.” All I responded with was a grunt, and I left the turtles with him when I exited his home. Let’s hope so, Mandrake, I told him mentally. You don’t know how tempted I am to just take this money and run.

Othrongroth. Andraste had said the Nazgûl’s leader would be here. I had to wonder what exactly he thought he could accomplish alone in the Great Barrow. It meant he wouldn’t be alone, though, because I hadn’t heard of anything, or any spirit, living within the barrows that might spell the doom of Bree and its surroundings. As I halted where Tom Bombadil had led me, skipping, through the barrows into the marshes, I rocked back on my heels. Bombadil had gone unmolested during his walk. As he had stated, he was the Master.

I didn’t know if I would return from this venture. What lay in store for me within the giant hill except death? I thought of Leith, safely with his guardians, and knew that not returning wouldn’t impact his life much so long as I could gather my information and convince Bombadil to share it with someone who could take it to the Rangers or Strider. I privately conceded that last part might be far more colossal than getting into and out of the Great Barrow alive to do it myself.

I had been so involved in my thoughts that I had missed whatever the yellow-booted ancient had just said as he halted. I blinked and he pointed toward the dark figures moving toward the hummock, or the hill itself, perhaps both. “Between those stones is what you look for, the Great Barrow of the Downs.”

“And my targets are just now arriving, to boot,” I agreed as I moved up to Bombadil’s side.

Before I could ask him if he wanted to accompany me, Orald turned and started skipping away again. “Careful now, or there your bones will lie, until the wights have you dancing!” he informed me cheerily.

“As long as the music’s good,” I muttered to myself under my breath. There was no sense in waiting any longer. I had to follow the Witch-King and his dwarf companion to know of what they spoke. Silent as shadows, I firmly told myself. That’s how you survive this venture, Leich. I took a deep breath and moved down the hill path toward the torches that Bombadil had pointed out to me.

The two dark figures moved unhurriedly toward the entrance. Dwarves guarded it and bowed deeply as the duo approached them. I managed to lurk behind a large stone as they paused and, a moment later, the Witch-King stated plainly, coldly, “Come, Skorgrím.”

So that’s your name, dwarf? I noted with a little smirk. Aragorn will want to know that, for sure. He didn’t know your identity, before. He will this time. I let them pass through into the blackness of the barrow before slipping away from my hiding place to trail them. I knew by keeping to the shadows, the guarding dwarves would stand less chance of spotting me with my stealth. I was correct in that knowledge, though it took me long enough that I hardly needed a count of one hundred to make sure that the two creatures I hunted would stay just ahead of me without noticing my presence.

I hadn’t gone inside too far when a trio of dwarves ran around the far corner with uncertainty. The one in the lead declared, “I tell you I heard something!”

Wasn’t me, you blithering idiot, I replied, having frozen in place as soon as they appeared. I don’t make enough noise.

Which was, of course, when my boot kicked a loose pebble so it rattled over the ground like a peal of thunder. They immediately swung their attention to me and one of the torch bearers cried, “Who goes there!” My hope that I could simply remain still until they labeled it settling stones and retreated splintered as they came closer to where I lay hidden. They would spot me in moments. I had to move fast.

So, I very literally moved fast. Instead of darting back toward the exit like a sane man, I became a blur of shadow and night made flesh. A throwing knife whirled through the air toward one of the dwarves. It helped distract two of them enough so that, while it found its mark in the shoulder of its target, I leaped in with my knives to pierce the leader in the middle of his back with one blade. Three to one had never been odds I particularly enjoyed but they weren’t unknown to me. It took me a short time to end them. I cleaned my blades on their clothing, dragged them into the shadows – and dwarves are quite a bit heavier than you may expect – before continuing on my way. They wouldn’t be found easily by any further patrols. I needed every moment that I could spare.

The next set of dwarves caught me unaware; they spotted me before I had a chance to hide better. Their captain bellowed, “You heard Lord Skorgrím! No one gets past us! Kill them! For the Dourhands!”

Who names their clan that? I wondered as I entered my next fray. Unfriendly-hands? Surly-hands? No suspicious characters in there, surely. The captain who led them was the last to fall. He was much tougher than his subordinates and I felt some grudging respect for the dwarf as a result. I knew, could remember, the training that soldiers went through to become that tough and even tougher. But fall, he did, and I once again wiped my blades and carried on.

The tunnel widened into a chamber with pillars. I managed to kill one of the Dourhands within before the rest noticed me and came running. They, too, had a captain in their midst – but this one refused to engage until his men were slain. Only then did he growl, “All right! You’ve killed my men, but you won’t kill me!”

“Care to place bets, little Sad-hand?” I retorted.

He snarled and leaped for me. It was no use, though. Just like the others who I had faced thus far, this dwarf proved no match for me. The problem was that he seemed to think he could escape. I was more than willing to let him until I realized he would only alert others – and if three to one odds wasn’t one I appreciated, more than that would most certainly ruin my day. “I… I can’t be defeated!” he claimed desperately as he scurried back from me, unarmed. “Stay back!”

“I’m afraid I can’t do that,” I replied as I advanced on him. Hobbits and dwarves made me feel taller than I already was, and I was blindingly tall for a human man. Giant-nose, giant-toes, I could hear the other children taunt. Why isn’t your hair white from all the snow, troll?

He kept evading me and running toward a blocked off exit. “Skorgrím promised… he said we couldn’t be defeated….”

“It’s like nobody has ever lied to you before,” I said, shaking my head. “Are you that gullible? Maybe I need to kill you so you don’t pass this on to your future children.”

The captain froze and frowned as he looked around, his back pressed to the wall. I had heard it too: a strange, metallic sound like metal on stone. Unlike the Dourhand, however, I recognized it immediately. It was the same sound that the wight at the Shade’s tomb had produced when his weapon had contacted the boulder I’d had to roll away. “What…what was that noise?”

My gaze went to the wall behind him. “Get away from the-” I began to shout in warning, hand flying out, but it was too late. The whole wall burst inward as if struck by something powerful. Chunks of it rained down upon the captain, who found himself buried with a dismayed final cry.

From the dark interior beyond strode a tall, armored wight with a sword in its hand. The smell of must and old death billowed from the loosed air as it rasped at me, “The dead suffer no intruders…” That was why the Dourhands had been out here, I realized, while the dead remained trapped beyond. I shot a look toward the doorway to my left and knew that the Witch-King and Skorgrím had undoubtedly used it and sealed it behind them as they passed through. My gaze went back to the wight as it charged me.

I had no time to sneak. I had no idea how many more of its kind lay beyond. I deflected a sword strike and rolled away. A sword lay nearby from the Dourhands I had killed. I grabbed it on the way up. I could use it well enough. I had the training. They had wanted me to wield a two-handed sword before I left and I had run through argument after argument as to why I didn’t have the strength despite my height. In some ways, I was actually better with the one-handed arming sword than my knives, given I still needed mastery of the latter. I was faster with the knives, though, and that often made all the difference.

Not so, here. I needed to kill the dead thing quickly and keep moving. I had already fought twice in fairly quick succession and had an unknown number of foes ahead of me, to boot. The further I had come, the more certain I had become that my ability to stealth my way through safely might not work well. If I had to fight my way in and out again, would I even be able to escape once I had made it back outside? Bombadil’s home lay quite some distance away, after all…

I took the opportunity to strike off the wight’s head when it came. It flailed wildly with its sword trying to catch me with it, but I moved from behind to strike it down at last. I decided to keep the sword for the time being and collected a scabbard for it that I settled around my waist as I stepped cautiously into the darkness of the tomb.

I did make it through to the next chamber safely, but the voices up ahead only became distinct as I closed on them. The Witch-king’s raspy voice fell silent for a moment before saying, “Come, Ivar awaits us.” The two figures moved off down the corridors of the barrow and I counted to one hundred this time. Ivar. I wasn’t sure who that was, but it made for a third person involved. If I turned back now, I would have information enough that I didn’t think that Strider and the Rangers, or anyone else, might have.

I could continue, however, and perhaps find out what the three of them had planned.

I finished my count and moved forward once again. I wound up having to fight again before I found stairs leading down. Voices echoed from the bottom chamber and I crept across it as slowly and lightly as possible. I’d taken another couple of minor wounds in the last fight that stung and throbbed terribly. All the same, I listened as I glued myself to the shadows and stole down the old wooden stairs so that they wouldn’t creak or give me away.

The Witch-king’s voice traveled to me and I actually had to stop as I realized what I was hearing. “Ivar, we shall have need of your ward in the east. We must counter the loss of Amdir.” East? I wondered. How far east? Who is this Ivar’s ward? But the Nazgûl lord continued. “Skorgrím, your dwarves should focus their efforts in the north and east. My champion has not yet finished her task.” I managed to peek around to see the three figures: a gaunt looking creature had joined the Nazgûl and the dwarf. “A great reward awaits you, if you both succeed.”

Of course it does, I thought to myself. Isn’t that what Skorgrím promised his underlings, too? Is this part of the evildoer’s standard operating style? A rule they follow?

The raspy voice sounded thoughtful. “The Ring moves east, to Imladris, no doubt.” I felt my jaw clench and my blood start going cold in my veins. If the Witch-king already knew the Ring headed east, did he also know who carried it? Had killing Andraste been for nothing? Or was there something else at play here and we still had at least one advantage in that he didn’t know the hobbit’s identity further than Baggins? “Once your tasks are complete, Mordirith awaits you both in the north.”

Mordirith, I repeated, trying to commit the name to memory. Skorgrím, Mordirith, Ivar, Ivar’s ward, the north and east… Surely, someone will move to the aid of these places? Are there enough people to do so?

But another shock was coming. “Pay no heed to the twice fool, Saruman,” the Nazgûl hissed. I felt myself go pale. Saruman was a name I knew from my travels with trade routes into Rohan. He was said to be the wisest of the wizards – and yet, the Witch-king either dismissed him out of hand or intimated that Saruman had been defanged. “Our plans in the south are reaching fruition.” Rohan, I understood. Perhaps that was why Saruman was being mentioned. Had the Witch-king made sure that the wizard couldn’t help the efforts of the Free People? It was dire news either way.

The final stair creaked underfoot in my brief surprise. All three beings turned to me and a terrifying screech arose from the Black Rider. Between it and the surge of dread and terror that nearly suffocated me, all I could do was drop to my knees with my head covered. I was about to die. I knew it. The creature would flow over to me and stab me with its blade, and I would become like Amdir… “Fool! I shall suffer your presence no longer!” it raged. “You have hounded my steps for too long!”

It knew I was here? I wondered, knowing that if my eyes hadn’t squeezed tightly shut, I might have felt them widen. Sealing the door meant that it had laid a trap for me. The Nazgûl had expected the dead to kill me, and more than likely, Skorgrím had said that his dwarves would do so beforehand. Everything that I hadn’t heard…. How much of that would be critical as well? I had to make it out of here alive, now.

The Witch-king knew that as well. “And now the Dead shall take you,” he proclaimed even as he and the other two turned to walk through a stone doorway that yawned open before them. When it closed, only then did the dead rise from in front of it, clawing their way out, and the abject terror I felt only passed once the Black Rider had been gone for several moments. “As the great king commands….” one of them replied to the Nazgûl. “Only the Dead…shall pass….”

I barely had enough time to lurch to my feet again and draw my sword before the wights were upon me at the urge of their leader, “Kill him….” I could feel myself responding with more energy and strength than before as a thrill passed through me. I felt faster, better, with the heavy dread lifted and the threat of death directly in front of me. One wight fell, then a second, and the third scored a cut across the top of my shoulder before I put it down.

I panted and my sword dropped slightly. I looked back at the stairwell coming down and then at the door where the three monsters had vanished. A perverse sort of defiance entered me in the knowledge that they probably thought I was dead or that I would leave from the front entrance. Sword in hand, I took a deep breath and strode toward the set of stone doors to prove them wrong. I would hound them right out of the Great Barrow and prove the Witch-king weaker than he thought! It was a matter of pride at this point!

Except a wight appeared from directly outside as I walked toward the doors. I cursed soundly as I spotted it. “Arise…arise, my brothers…” it commanded, and other wights appeared from the shadows and ground. Even as they did, though, I had charged toward the main wight with my sword at the ready. By the time it was done, I had a shallow gouge in my side near one hip and found myself clubbing apart one of the wights with the femur from another, snarling, “You… get… back… down… there!” I rose and flung the bone from me so that it shattered against the nearby stone wall of the tomb. Sweat and dust, dirt as well, covered me so that I was a mess. I just wanted a bath and some healing draughts. If the doors were the way out, then I meant to take them.

Heavy yet still serviceable, they pushed open with effort when I attempted it. I stepped into a dimly lit corridor while I still panted from my exertions. I was finished with this barrow and the dead inside. If I didn’t now carry critical information, I would be finished with the whole hero bit as well. I found myself wondering, as I made my way as cautiously as possible down the tunnel, if the Witch-king had a face to slap before I died screaming horribly. I found myself sorely tempted.

The lighting brightened at the end of the hall in such a way that I knew it had to be a larger, more open chamber. Before I could wonder if anyone were inside, I heard a distant voice call out, “Thou may come forward….” Part of me immediately wanted to turn right back around and thwart its designs in spite. It wasn’t the part that won out. Once I approached the corridor’s end, I could see a large throne in the center, on a raised platform, that became clearer by the time I had come into the penumbra of the lights within. A figure sat on the throne, a wight by the looks of it, and I wondered how many more of them I would need to fight before I could leave the blasted Great Barrow. Furthermore, I found no sign of the Witch-king and his cronies, which meant they had departed by some unknown means. A path out of this room had to exist.

I halted on the threshold and the wight spoke again. “Greetings, fool. If thou seekest an audience, thou mayest approach.”

A look around the chamber as it spoke and rose from its seat told me the way out had to be at the back of the room, opposite of where I now stood. Squaring my shoulders, I approached the wight where he waited at the top of the small set of steps leading up to his throne. I didn’t reply for the moment.

It seemed to take my silence as permission to continue. “I am Sambrog, ruler of the Great Barrow and all the Barrow-downs without,” it informed me. “Thou hast come a long way to stand before me.”

I halted and looked up at him through my mask. “Not that long. I just need to pop out of that back door you have behind you and I’ll be out of your hair,” I explained with a nod toward the area in question.

“Thou wouldst not grace me with thy name?” Sambrog inquired almost in amusement. “Hast thou no manners?”

I rolled my eyes. “No. But sure, why not? Morchandir.” I bowed slightly. “Now, if you’ll excuse me?” I pointed toward the back wall expressively.

“Well met! My Master sends thee greetings,” the wight lord continued. I stopped before I’d taken a step and looked back at the creature.

“Master?” I replied. “The Witch-king, I assume?” How much more did this high-ranking wight know about the plans I had overheard just outside?

Sambrog laughed and I wasn’t sure how, given he wasn’t much more than bones. “I grant thee the boon of an audience before I kill thee. Thou seemed desirous of certain knowledge, so I will give it thee.” He paused. “For the Dead speak not!” he finished with a mad cackle.

“Great, I have an undead jester in front of me,” I grunted at him. “Forgetting for the moment that I can probably beat you in a fight, let’s entertain my curiosity, then. Go on.” I crossed my arms at my chest. “I’m listening.”

He obliged me without a moment’s hesitation. “My Master seeks a great power for the Dark Lord, but the Dark Lord hast more designs than this. The Pale Dwarf shall go to the north and gather an army in the name of Angmar and the Witch-king!”

“Heard that part outside,” I pointed out. “You’ll have to do better than that, Sambrog. The dwarf is named Skorgrím, did you know? And I hear the Witch-king’s champion is on a mission.”

The wight continued with a hint of dismay at first that vanished back into confidence within a few words. “The gaunt one, a great power himself and to whom I owe this form, goes to the east. There, in Agamaur, he shall awaken a Power that lies sleeping in the waters. With her under his command, the skies will turn to blood and all shall despair!”

“Ivar,” I agreed. “He did look pretty gaunt, I admit.” I lifted a hand to scratch at my opposing bicep. “Then the two of them are supposed to head to the north and join Mordirith in Angmar. Know anything about that, Sambrog?”

He didn’t reply for several moments. I could feel the abrupt malice that rolled off of him and dropped my arms back to my sides. “Now thy audience comes to an end,” the wight grated with satisfaction. “Thy death awaits thee.” He motioned with a hand and commanded, “Arise, my warriors!”

Lesser wights shifted stone and began to lurch and claw their way up from the ground and out of the surrounding walls at his summons. “Cheating coward!” I spat at him as he moved to engage me. My sword snickered free of its sheath to meet his and I leaped away from his return blow. I managed to boot the skull off of one of the emerging wights so that it flailed blindly to the surface before again turning my attention back to the wight lord. I knew the headless wight would find a way to attack me, but I had given myself a few more seconds. I attacked Sambrog viciously and scored several hard blows to his undead form before the first wight showed up and I had to turn my attention away. Sambrog, however, didn’t take up position to become the pincer. Instead, he stepped away. By the time that the first wight fell, the second wight had seemingly found and replaced its head onto its body once again and came to attack me. I had barely defeated it when a whistling sound warned me too late of my error.

Whipping round, I found Sambrog back to normal once again as if I had never harmed him. I also found his sword thrusting itself into my side. The wound wasn’t mortal immediately but all the same, I knew that it could well become so. “Thou canst not defeat me!” he declared with glee.

I stepped back and turned to slash at the undead creature again, knocking a rib away in the process, and hacked off one of his arms after evading his strike at me. It wasn’t the arm with his weapon, unfortunately, and even as I watched, the wounds I had made on his form began to vanish and the arm I had removed made its way back to him. He casually stepped back to it so that it flew up toward his stump to reattach itself. I watched it happen in horror. The wight was right: I couldn’t defeat him when he could heal himself so quickly and I couldn’t. My limbs already felt heavy and the heat of my own blood as it trickled down my side reminded me that I wouldn’t last much longer if I kept at it.

Gritting my teeth, I threw one of my knives at him. He blocked it with his weapon and left himself open in the process so that one of my knives found itself buried where his kidneys would otherwise have been. Before I could get free, however, he backhanded me so that I felt my world spin as I flew several feet away to land on the stone heavily. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t even breathe for a few moments. All I could do was watch the wight approach me, cackling, with his sword raised to kill me.

“Hey do! Merry do!”

The muffled, distant voice gave Sambrog pause. You have to be joking with me, I thought to myself. “What? It cannot be!” the wight raged as it turned around toward the back wall. Three strides later, the stone hiding the exit burst open to allow in the skipping, yellow-booted form of Tom Bombadil.

I tried to roll and rise to my feet while Orald had the wight lord distracted, intent on finishing the battle, but my stomach had yet to unclench so that I could take in a deep breath. My hand flopped helplessly toward my knife just out of reach. He wouldn’t accompany me through this, but he shows up now? I asked in frustration.

Tom sounded as if he were scolding the wight. “What be you a-thinking? Dead men should not be waking!” A motion of his hand brought the whole of the ceiling down upon Sambrog in a moment. The wight lord didn’t even have the chance to react with more than a shriek of dismay before the heavy blocks of stone had crushed him. I wasn’t sure if he was dead, or at least dead again, yet, but I knew I had to take the chance to leave.

As soon as I could breathe again, that is.

“Vanish into sunlight, leave your barrows empty!” commanded Bombadil, and I could almost feel how the spirits within the tomb did just that. The air itself felt lighter, cleaner, and I finally managed to suck air down into my chest with a relieved sound. I lay prone for another few moments, just breathing, before rolling wearily to my side and collecting my weapons once again.

Once I had them, I stumbled to where Tom Bombadil waited for me in the tomb. Pulling off my mask to stuff it in a side pouch, I laid a hand to my bleeding side and nodded at him in soundless thanks. He wasn’t finished scolding, however, as he asked me, “Was it worth the trouble? Did you learn your lesson? Leave the Dead to sleep their dreamless sleep and walk yourself upon the green grass under the sun!”

“Worth it,” I agreed with a quick nod and a grimace. “Definitely worth it. Until I wake up sore tomorrow and start cursing myself for being a fool.”

Something about my reply seemed to lighten Tom’s mood. He clapped a hand on my shoulder, which had me grimacing in pain, and chirped to me, “Come now, my merry friend, warm fire is awaiting…” He then skipped off to the hole in the wall to lead me out.

It took long enough to reach his home that I had begun to feel a little light-headed. Goldberry sat me in a chair and fussed over my wounds to clean them and heal them while Tom helped her straighten up the house and prepare for supper. “Was it really the old spirits?” she asked me as I sat there.

It was Tom who replied, though, and he did so to the both of us. “Old barrow-wights from Angmar came. They disturb the peace and trouble folk who wander through their mounds. Let the Dead sleep and leave their troubles in the earth. Unless of course you wake them, dancing on their rooftops!”

“It’s the truth, Morchandir,” Goldberry agreed lightly. “Nothing originating from that land has ever been good.” She rose and patted my arm gently. “Let’s have you eat a little and then you can rest here overnight.” Drifting over to her husband, she reached up to gently tug on his beard with a fond expression. He chuckled happily, in return and it reminded me of my past and my loneliness now. I felt awkward at having seen them.

I sighed softly as I turned from them. Tom seemed to have heard me as he swapped places with Goldberry, now that she was free, to move toward me. “Hey, come, my friend. Linger here no longer. To Bree you should be a-going. You’ve a friend there who awaits you!”

I knew he wasn’t trying to get rid of me. If he’d had his way, I would’ve stayed overnight to heal a little more. Goldberry clucked her tongue and waved her wooden spoon slightly at him. “He should be resting,” she pointed out.

“No, don’t scold him,” I offered politely. “He’s right. Everything in me wants to rest here and take you up on your offer, but I’m afraid I do have to return to Bree as quickly as possible.” I stood with more grimaces as my body complained. It wanted to stay put for a while, too. Let me deliver this message and I’ll take a room at the Pony to do just that, I promised myself.

“If you’re set on going,” Goldberry said, “then you’ll want to take the shortcut through the Old Forest up the Old Barrows Road. It leads to that camp of men and hobbits that you fetched my water for.” She explained where I would find it when I was going along the old road.

I closed my eyes. “Perfect. I don’t think I could stand going through the barrows again right now,” I admitted to them both.

The beautiful River-daughter turned to me and pulled something from a nearby shelf. She held it out to me, and I saw it was the shade’s ring. “I knew you would return,” she said with a brilliant smile. “Be safe, Morchandir.”

I inclined my head to the both of them and made my farewells after pocketing the ring. I collected the items I had left behind, strapped them to my back, and set off on the Old Barrows Road once again. I made sure to avoid the wild animals that I found as well as the bloody roots and vines that wanted to lash at me when I traveled too near, until I had to veer away from the bend in the road to continue straight. It saved me loads of time, given it was still late afternoon when I found my boots treading the path out of the forest and into Adso’s camp.

I explained where their borrowed horse was in Buckland and apologized for not returning it. I still looked frightful enough that they didn’t ask too many questions. I sold my gear to one of them and took a horse from their public stable to the west gate of Bree. It was a long enough ride that I had time to consider my next move once I had delivered my news to Aragorn. Leave, I reminded myself. You’ve done more than enough in this tale. You have no reason to do anything further. You’ve gone beyond what you were asked to do at this point and have the blood spilled to show for it. It’s time to find some good paying burgling jobs and go back to Lake-town for a while so that you can enjoy your son growing up.

I stood near the west gate after handing over the horse to the stablemaster nearby. Before I moved on to deliver my news to Strider, I wanted to complete the task that the wandering shade had given me. I spent a little coin on a horse to the southern gate’s stablemaster, dismounted, and headed toward some nearby merchants. My query regarding a ghostly spirit resulted in a fearful account of having seen it roaming through the streets in the night. They called the area The Haunted Alley and pointed it out as west of where they were, running to the Hunter’s Lodge. I took it as a good sign and set off.

The paved street between the buildings moved in a slow half-circle around several long-standing and ancient looking structures. It was still daylight and I couldn’t spot the shade at all. At night, I recalled then. His brother said he wanders at night. How does he know, though? He’s all the way in the barrows.

I passed an ornate stone area and halted. Backing up, I moved to the collection of stone and found myself looking at a tomb. “Ah, there you are,” I said aloud from behind my mask. Approaching the tomb, I could read the inscription on the sarcophagus: “A tomb made for a Lord of the kingdom of Arnor.” Placing my hands on the top of the stone lid, I shoved with all my strength to dislodge it in some fashion. I needed to place the ring within. It finally budged a fraction after several minutes and I leaned against it, sweating, to collect myself.

I felt the chill of the shade’s presence before I looked up to see him. Lifting my hands, I said hurriedly, “I disturbed you for a reason. Don’t get upset. Your brother sent me here.” I pulled the ring from one of my pockets and held it out in my palm so that he could see it.

The slight sense of anger faded instantly. “Shining and gleaming,” the ghost offered in his equally ghostly voice, “I hath seen this before / on hand of my kin / as death pulled him forth.”

I nodded quickly. “He sent me to fetch it from a wight that had taken it. The barrows were disturbed by evil spirits from Angmar and the Bone Man… well, he won’t bother you any longer.” I smiled behind the mask as helpfully as I could.

He pointed at the crack in the lid where I had slid it aside. “In the stone alcove, / where life ebbed away, / we had hid treasure / and summoned forth death,” he continued to explain.

I turned and stuffed the ring as gently as I could manage into the slot I’d made. “He mentioned that, too,” I offered. “There were wights there. I handled them for you. He wanted me to bring you this ring after it was all said and done so that you would know everything has been put right.”

He sighed in weary relief. “Now shall I rest, / as my brother the same. / At last at peace, / at last to dream.” He drifted to the tomb and began to sink back within it. “Seek the black rock….” he said before vanishing.

“Black rock?” I asked, baffled. “What black rock?” No answer came. I knocked on the top of the lid. “Shade? King – lord – dead Arnorian?” I tried to peek within the crack I had made between the lid and the coffin. “Don’t sleep yet, you have to explain what that last thing you said meant!” When silence greeted me, I huffed a sigh and moved to the other side of the lid so I could slip it closed once more. “Not even a thank you,” I grunted with effort as I heaved. “Just talking about mysteries on more mysteries.”

I looked up to find several people staring at me in wide-eyed awe. I blinked at them stupidly until one pointed at the sarcophagus and exclaimed, “You got rid of the ghost!? Hero, what’s your name?”

I looked down at the shade’s tomb and replied, haltingly, “Uhhh… Morchandir. I suppose I did? Though I don’t know that getting rid of—”

“He put the wraith to rest!” a woman gasped in joy, clapping. “Wait until the mayor hears!”

“I’m telling everyone who lives here right away!” a man beside her agreed and darted off to do just that.

I motioned with both hands quickly to stop them, but it was too late. “No, please, you don’t have…” My shoulders slumped momentarily, and I rubbed the back of my neck. “Hot bath and a room at the Pony,” I stated firmly. “A healing draught. A good dinner. A long sleep. And some new clothes if I can manage it. That sounds about right.”

I looked toward the setting sun and my steps slowed to a stop. Turning back toward the nobleman’s tomb, I couldn’t help but smile slightly. “Right. No wandering tonight or any other night. Get some rest, you and that brother of yours.”

Setting my sights on the path ahead, I somberly ran through what I would need to tell Strider in fifteen or so minutes, given I had to walk to the inn. I swear, if the man tells me to do something else, though, I’ll have to say no, I promised myself. He’ll just have to find someone else. My part in this is done as soon as I tell him what I need to.

The moon set alight the fog spreading over the low areas of the Barrow-downs. It hovered at knee height for the moment to obscure the ground from my vision. I crouched behind a spar of stone watching shambling wights moving around and swirling the growing haze around their skeletal legs. I had already followed the ridge rising above the Old Barrows Road around and to the south, but I could only wonder how much farther it would be until I found the crebain and whatever evil force seemed to be leading them. Was it another of the Nazgûl? Were they female and male? Was it one of the red-robed cargûl instead? I couldn’t worry about it until I found them; yet, I found myself returning to the idea repeatedly when I had to pause and assess my path forward as I did presently.

When it wasn’t concern for what I might find at the end of my path, I wondered at how Bombadil had managed to get over the ridge to begin with by skipping and leaping around. I had yet to find a path over it to the south where he might have come over. I had no real idea whether the crebain had even flown to the south, to be frank, but it seemed the most logical notion to begin with. Bombadil might not have gone over the ridge but around, the same as I had, and he hadn’t been absent for long enough to have gone across the entirety of the barrows and back no matter which direction he had chosen. My target had to be close by, and that meant the other side of the ridge.

I lifted a hand and my mask to rub a gloved finger on the side of my nose with a frown. Something in the area plagued me so that I itched. A weed. A flower. The walking dead. Something. I had already killed three barghests, five huge rats, and two wights because of untimely sneezes. I didn’t actually know how the wights managed to wield swords, let alone bows, given they had no ligaments and muscles with which to pull back bowstrings or bend their joints. I tried not to think about it. It was most likely black sorcery of the foulest kind that I could only be thankful was penetrable by a good dagger throw or strike.

I had come to realize quickly that the scent of musty, old crypts meant that the dead had newly risen. It was easier to avoid those mounds before their inhabitants could find me than for others. The carrion dogs howled in the night and preyed upon creatures that simply wanted to make their homes there, when they weren’t actively rooting up the bones of the dead to chew on them. I knew their kind. We named them Black Dogs while I traveled with the caravans, though they had different names depending on where we went. The Scuttledells south of Lake-town had them as Black Dogs, though we rarely went through that war-torn area. It was more we took a boat down the Anduin instead to avoid it completely and reach Rohan or further. The travel wound up much faster as it was.

A tall stone spire reached for the dark heavens in the near distance on a hill. It was surrounded by smaller stones of a similar shape. It was one of the few landmarks that I knew from my time in Bree: the Dead Spire in the northern Barrow-downs. It was somewhat central to the area and visible from a far enough distance that I could guide myself by it. This didn’t make it safe; on the contrary, barghests, rats, and wights crawled over its surface in their mindless hunting for victims. People like me, though I counted myself only a potential victim rather than a foregone conclusion.

I continued on my way. I passed as a shadow might to avoid contact with the aggressive creatures who had stirred due to the dark influences and powers at work here. I could hear the crebain cawing long before I saw them and knew my destination was close. Their calls helped me pinpoint them, in fact, and I realized I might have overshot them had I not been using my senses appropriately.

I crept up until I could see what awaited me while they couldn’t see me. I had that much skill, at least. One strangely garbed woman stood tending almost lovingly to the four crebain accompanying her. I could hear her speaking to them in a low tone that kept me from understanding the content of her words. She would lift a hand to stroke one’s feathered chest with her fingers and feed it bits of what I could only say was meat of some form, given what they were. Another would mantle its wings and flap them with a jealous cry to see its brother receive a treat and hop or waddle closer to her on its perch to gently peck at her hands with little low warbling sounds so that she had to turn her attention to it, as well. She treated them as pets or children.

I wanted to flank her, but she had positioned herself against the boulders and stone of the ridge instead of in the open. I had no gap and no way of using it to my advantage, and the crebain themselves used the ridge as a watchtower. The only reason they hadn’t spotted me yet, other than my stealth, was because she was offering them treats for good behavior. Or out of her affection. Either way, their attention had been neatly diverted at the exact right time for me.

Or so I thought as I stole toward her turned back and slid my knives from my sleeves, carefully concealing their shining blades under the light of the stars and moon above. The crow-like monstrosities shared the fascination with sparkling objects with their black-plumed cousins. I could hear her as I approached in the shadows as she said, “Andraste is here, my loves. Your lost kin will be replaced. You were the strongest of the flock… rest and sleep a little while to forget your sorrows.”

Andraste, I thought to myself. That must be her name. It didn’t matter to me. She and the birds had to die if the Ring’s whereabouts were to be kept secret and safe. I never learned the names of my victims or asked questions. Those didn’t benefit me when I needed to silently kill someone for my reward, and when I accidentally learned them, it often caused me hesitation and guilt later that I couldn’t afford to feel. I might have liked the violence more than I was willing to admit but humanizing the target was never a good idea.

I was wrong that it was the exact right time to pull the attention of the crebain and that they hadn’t already spotted me coming. Before I could even reach her, a craban made a soft noise and Andraste looked over her shoulder. “I should have realized an idiot would come,” she greeted me with a sneer. She wasn’t an attractive woman, but she wasn’t a hideous one either. Something dark flitted over and through her features and eyes as she turned to me. “The skipping and singing idiot must have sent you.”

I bristled up at her comment about Orald. Despite my misgivings about the ancient being, I felt mildly protective over him. He was part of our culture, my culture, and those of the Free People. How dare she openly mock him? Never mind that I might have privately done the same. It didn’t feel right to mean it so much as this woman obviously did. “Do you think I fear you?” I asked coldly from behind my mask.

She laughed in scorn. “The Lord of the Nazgul returns to Othrongroth. You would be wise to flee before his arrival or you shall know true fear.”

I glanced between her and the quartet of crebain behind her. The breeze suddenly shifted enough to blow the stench of decaying flesh to my nostrils even under the mask, and I realized then that she was feeding her charges meat from corpses dead only a short time. Where she had gotten them, I didn’t know. Perhaps the victims of the shattered group of merchants I had seen camping on the Old Barrows Road. Their dead would be shambling wights at this point as well. “Those creatures have nothing of importance to offer your master,” I bluffed at her. “You’ll be struck down for your stupidity.”

She motioned with a high-pitched cackle of delight and I knew she’d called that bluff. “Fool! Did you think that my pets would not learn that the Ring now travels east in the hands of a hobbit named Frodo Baggins?”

They had overheard the hobbit’s words after all. “There is no such hobbit,” I began through gritted teeth, but she shouted over me. “You have failed utterly! When the master of the Nine returns, he shall learn of this – and of your untimely death!” she declared in triumph. Even as she swung her arm in an arc to motion the crebain forth, I shifted my stance to a defensive one. “Now, come my pets!”

They attacked in twos when in a flock, if the last fight I’d had in Buckland with them had been any indication. I was ready for the four of them to come for me at once all the same. They launched themselves in the gloom and I had to orient by moonlight and the sound of their wings moving. How many were there? I wasn’t sure.

The first blow landed across my head as a pair of beating, black appendages crashed against it from above and behind. When I turned to slash at the air, I felt a connection but couldn’t clearly see what I had hit: the attacker or one of its kin. Whichever one it was, the craban dropped to the ground and flapped spastically at my side. I turned my attention to the next one and clearly spotted it for just long enough to spit its hovering form on the end of my knife so it, too, fell. There was no time to check if they were dead, however, as within moments, an angry call from above heralded the second pair’s assault. I could hear Andraste screeching at them from nearby as they dodged my strikes so that they were non-lethal, yet bloody. I shattered the wing of one with a timed blow and faced the last one. A lucky strike sheared off it’s head in a spray of black in the night and I stood amidst the carnage I had wrought.

Andraste shrieked, “No… My beautiful birds!”

Turning to her, I sneered, “I killed their flock in Buckland and you expected them to kill me now? Who’s the fool, here?”

“You shall die for this!” she snarled in response and came for me with her weapon in hand. I evaded her first strike, turned, and threw my knife into her pale, exposed throat. She looked surprised as her hands lost their grip on the staff she held so it fell, clattering, to the ground. They came up to her neck as her knees gave way and she sank to the ground near her birds. She had time to take hold of the hilt and pull it as she crumpled over sideways and stared at me with incredulity. The night breeze ruffled my dark clothing as I stood staring at her for a long moment. I then calmly walked past her on silent feet and let her dying ears hear the squawks of the three remaining crebain as I lifted them one by one and twisted their heads with audible cracks to end them. When I bent down after to retrieve my bloodied dagger from one of her hands, she had tears in her swiftly dimming eyes.

“You should’ve feared me more,” I said simply, almost gently, to her. And then used her clothing to clean my weapons before replacing them in their hidden sheaths.

I stayed until she had died not because I wanted to but because I had to know for certain that the information she held would stay with her. A barghest howled in the distance as her blood poured from her slit throat and soaked into the ground beneath her. When I walked away, I made sure to cling to the shadows near the ridge once again and guided myself by the gleam of the moon on the Dead Spire.

I had come nearly abreast of it when a shimmering apparition intersected my path. It floated along what seemed to be a set track around the Spire’s base, paused to hover as if searching for something, and then moved on again. I tensed and prepared to defend myself, wondering how I would fight a ghost, when it spotted me and stopped once again. “Who are you?” I demanded warily of the armored, decaying shade. “What do you want of me?”

An airy, hoarse voice from the crypt wheezed in some kind of rhyme and meter,

“All was silence;

now the sound of steel

rings from battles past

long beyond the laying of bones;

stirred by evil’s passage

my brother walks again,

so too our foes.

Duty-bound we stand as one,

lost as he may be.

A lord he rose and, solemn,

buried me.

My shield calls to my arm,

my ring calls to my hand,

my sight departed as my life,

our oaths bind us still;

protect and serve this land.”

It didn’t attack, but I wasn’t the best at poetry. “Right,” I replied dubiously. I had to think a moment about the shade’s words. “All was silence. You were at peace?” It nodded its skeletal head once. “And now something has awakened you and… your brother, and your enemies that killed you?” Again, it nodded at my words in silent agreement. “You died first and aren’t sure where he is, though.” A nod. “But you and he want to protect this place again because… of that evil that awakened you.”

“Yesss,” it hissed with what I thought might be relief and even happiness. As happy as a dead spirit could be, I suppose.

I didn’t want to stay any longer. I needed to get back to Bombadil and Strider to let them know that the deed was done and the hobbits and Ring were safe for now. Something about the shade pulled at me, though, so that I stepped closer to it with a frown visible beneath my mask. “Then what is it you need from me?” I repeated with a shake of my head. “I don’t know how  you can fight things that aren’t also spirits.”

“My shield calls to my arm, / my ring calls to my hand,” it replied with an air of a crypt long buried that had been newly opened.

I blinked once. “You need me to find your shield and ring?” When it nodded, I glanced around for a moment at the surrounding barrows. “Oh, this should be quick,” I muttered to myself with a sigh.

But it continued to speak, this time with something new. “Long did I rest, / now awake, as vengeance claims trinkets / to call a curse upon our bones.”

I made a noise. “Vengeance?” I echoed as I returned my attention to him. I was reminded of his words from before about enemies also walking again now. “One of your enemies has your items?”

The wraith nodded and then spoke again. “As it was in life, / so too in death. / His curse on us still / as we yearn for sleep.”

I made a face as I nodded, though I wasn’t sure that the shade could see it. “I think I understand that part. You just want to keep sleeping and this…” I paused before I could say the word I wanted to say, as vulgar as it was. “Moron,” I said instead, striving to be polite, “woke you up because he has your things, which is a bit of a holdover of a curse from when you were all still alive.” I sighed. “Where can I find him, do you know?”

The shade appeared more animated at my reluctant aid. “My ring, forgotten, / may still be found.” He motioned in such a vague manner that I had no real idea what direction he intended to point at. “Speed along, living, / to a tomb of ground.”

“Speed along?” I growled. “Don’t be impatient, wraith. You’ve been dead for this long. You can wait another few hours if needed.” I decided to move to my left first and go around the Spire toward some of the mounds that I saw in the near distance. Surely, it wouldn’t be far away from the wandering shade’s circular path around the Spire. Not if he had decided to stay nearby at least.

I moved cautiously to the front of the first small barrow that I found. I didn’t know if a wight would leap out at me or down from the top or not. I needn’t have worried: the undisturbed area in the front told me that this wasn’t the tomb I needed. The next three, one to the north, another to the southwest, and the last to the west, all appeared the same. I felt some small comfort that whoever, or whatever, was inside hadn’t yet risen like so many other corpses. I turned at last to the south and firmed my resolve. If this wasn’t the barrow, then I would have to tell the shade that I couldn’t find it and had to be on my way. I had more important things to take care of.

This tomb was different. It had a strange tension to it as I approached and, upon searching the front where the slab stood against the door, had disturbed earth around it as if something had entered and exited recently. I wasn’t sure if it was the right tomb, but I knew there was a wight inside regardless. Was this the Wandering Shade’s own tomb, stolen from him? That would make some sense as well. I drew my knives, set my shoulder against the stone, and started to roll it out of the way of the opening.

The low scraping of stone on stone and the grinding of the earth beneath the heavy weight sounded like thunder in the silent night. Even the small insects still chirping nearby went dead. I scurried back after a sword slid out and barely missed my side. There wasn’t enough space for a body to leave, but skeletal hands made sure the stone rolled another few inches to allow the wight to exit. “Fool of a shade! My master the Bone Man has made a thrall of your shield-brother!” the hollow, raspy voice announced as it stepped forth into the night air.

It seemed surprised to see a living being in front of it instead. There were no lids to blink yet the hesitation once its sockets turned to me was almost palpable. “No eyes making it hard to see?” I cracked.

The barrow wight continued as if it hadn’t heard me. Maybe it hadn’t. The thing didn’t have ears, after all. “And you… a living fool soon to be dead… I will send you into the shadow world too!”

I made a soft tsking sound and drew my weapons. “I already move through them but thank you for the offer.”

“So come to me now, fool… Come and die!”

“You first,” I retorted, and sure enough, the undead thing stepped forward with sword raised. I expected it to fall within a couple of strikes as the others I’d fought had as I evaded the first swing and went in under its arm with my knives. Both found homes in the corpse’s body with an eerily hollow sound before I pulled them away, taking a slight bit of rib cage with them.

The blows didn’t even slow the creature down. It turned and stabbed downward at me with its sword and a gaping, denuded jaw. I barely made it out of the way in time and received a thin furrow down and across my back for my trouble. My hiss of pain wasn’t just for the new wound; it was also for the torn shirt I now had to wear. I didn’t know how I’d get it mended after this was over if I didn’t find some ready cash. On the other hand, if I didn’t get my head back into what I was doing, I wouldn’t have to worry about it.

I feinted and went low to sweep out one of its bony legs. The entire leg from the knee down broke off and flew a distance away so that the wight lost its balance. It still hacked at me in mindless fury until I managed to stomp a booted foot onto its sword-bearing arm. The thing cracked under my heel and I did the same to its head at the neck while it clawed at my legs and left scratches down them. Reaching down, I grabbed at its skull and yanked the whole thing back until it came free of the spine with a snap. Hurling it from me, I stabbed and twisted the wight’s body apart completely in a delighted rage for having shed my blood. Only after I had completed my macabre mission did I rise and make my way into the barrow where it had been.

The moonlight from the open entry allowed me to see inside just enough as I searched the small tomb for any evidence of the shade’s presence. The large stone casket inside had been shifted and opened so that the body within lay exposed. One skeletal arm lay broken off on the outside of the coffin. I wrinkled my nose as I gingerly lifted it to place it back inside with the body. “I don’t know if this is yours,” I said aloud to the absent shade, “but if it is, I might as well be nice.” I found no ring inside with the rotted body. I dragged the top of the stone back into place and looked around the barrow further. There had to be a ring here if it was the shade’s tomb. If not, I would have to go back empty-handed and leave, bloodied, without anything to show for it. My pride smarted at the very idea. Was I a burglar, or wasn’t I?

I found the ring when a glint of gold caught my eye near the slab at the doorway. Moving to it I found a simple men’s ring inlaid with two stones. Pocketing it, I stepped out of the barrow and pushed the stone back into place to seal it once more and went in search of the Wandering Shade.

Finding him took longer this time, mostly due to the fact I had to actually go in search of him rather than running across him accidentally. I saw his floating, half-visible blue figure ahead of me after a half hour and approached him with as much irritated civility as I could muster with a back and leg that still felt on fire. Digging the ring from my pocket, I opened it to show it to him. He floated closer and said, with more hope in his breathy, ghostly voice, “Help my hand, now to his arm, lost too, lost too.”

I stared at him for a long moment. “He… lost his arm?” The shade shook his head at me but didn’t elaborate. I sighed and asked, “Then what is it that you need from me? I wish you would speak plainly.”

The shade fell silent for a few moments before speaking in its riddling way once again:

“Sundered and shattered,

metal and bone,

life bled onto the ground.

In shade of stone,

a south facing wall

wherein the earth

slept once the dead.

On cold hallowed ground

where dead lay asleep

woke they to greet

our treasure claimed.

There, by our honored,

sleeping, and gone,

my brother bid me farewell.

Now, the dead rise,

stirring the earth

now cursed from where

I fell.

Our curse recalled;

we shall walk

until the dead

are quelled.”

I lifted a hand to my head and rubbed the back of my neck as I rolled my head around. “Again with this,” I grumbled. “Somewhere, near a wall,” I began slowly, “where you fought and died….” The shade nodded. “Something in the ground?” I hazarded. It nodded once again. “You want me to go kill wights there because they’re disturbing that area?”

“Yes,” it breathed. “Slept once the dead.”

“I’ll consider that a yes,” I replied. “You and your brother can’t rest until they’re gone.” I pressed my lips together. “Somewhere near a wall is where you died and your men were buried.” I looked up at him a touch sharply. “With treasure?”

“Yes,” it said again with a nod of its skull, and I cursed internally. I wouldn’t be able to find it and take it myself if it was linked to the spirit in front of me. “Which direction?” I asked hopefully.

The wraith’s head lifted toward the sky above. “Against many did we fight,” he replied, “for a treasure, which we stole.”

I smirked. “That’s the way of it sometimes. I can understand.” I had done my share of punching and stabbing for something I had stolen to begin with, just to keep it.

But he continued without acknowledging me, saying, “Rise they from the ground / at his call / his cackle, cough and cry. / Fighting at the edge of stone / in a hollow where we lay the bones.”

“Cackle, cough, and cry?” I echoed, baffled. “Have you lost your… you know what? If an evil being can call forth the dead by coughing, I’m sure he has to be formidable. So, these enemies are at the edge of a stone wall in a hollow with people buried under the ground.” I gave him a long-suffering look. “Could you just point?”

The shade turned and did so. I didn’t expect it and therefore took a moment before nodding my thanks and setting off. The distance was farther this time, north of the shade’s tomb. It took time to get there given I had to fight through several enemies and incur a few more shallow wounds. Barghests have an extraordinarily strong bite that I had no desire to feel fully clamped on one of my limbs.

The place where the Barrow-downs more or less seemed to end on this side of the valley backed up against a separate set of ridges leading into the Old Forest that circled around. There existed more than one barrow, at least three that I could see, and I rubbed my sore right shoulder as I stood examining the area. A south facing wall caught my eye and I crept toward it. The vicinity remained quiet but for chittering rats and scuttling crawlers for the moment. The hazy scud here had thickened so I couldn’t see the ground well the lower I descended. I didn’t like the look of it one bit.

My instincts proved correct as I came close to the wall and the ground erupted nearby. Two wights made a strange growling, coughing noise of snarls as they somehow rose from the earth with their weapons. I leaped back in alarm, knives out, as they attacked. I had no time to toss out a witticism this time before I hacked and slashed them back to rest. The sound of more remains clattering up from somewhere nearby alerted me to a second onslaught of wights to put down, but the third and final pair nearly took me by surprise as I moved away from the freshly killed undead body. One reached out from beneath the thick fog to grab at my wounded leg while the other attempted to stab me from a lower position at the same time. The maneuver I had to complete to avoid being impaled from below was catlike enough that I knew I’d regret those muscles come time to wake up from my future well-deserved sleep.

I had slain all of the wights that seemed willing to show themselves near the wall. I made sure of it as I paced up and down, even stamping the ground more than once with a hiss of, “Come out, you worms! Out! Or are you too afraid even now?” My temper brought no more to the surface and I exited the area hoping that I had found the right one and defeated all of the wights the shade would need.

I found him once again and described the area where the wights had risen. “Was that the right place?” I asked at the end.

“Yes,” it breathed. It paused for a few moments and I felt some stirring of hope that perhaps I had done all that was required of me. “Still I linger,” it finally intoned. “One foe remains.”

I rolled my eyes heavenward. “Of course it does.” What am I doing? I asked myself. I have to be on my way already. I can’t keep running these hills endlessly for this shade.

The ghost set off on another enigmatic lyrical journey describing a wight in the southern area of the barrows who the brothers slew while they still lived. Or it was a man they slew and buried there, while they all still lived. I wasn’t entirely sure. Regardless, the wraith claimed, “Brothers, cursed, / return again / to face this foe / from whom they stole.”

My glance sharpened on him. “The treasure you fought and died for, that you buried off to the north – you stole it from this person to begin with and started this whole thing?” I felt myself try to bite my tongue when I said it. The hypocrisy involved didn’t escape me, given my profession. I had tried to steal something from a forest cottage and look where it had landed me.

“For deeds most noble / in intent,” the Wandering Shade answered. I frowned. Noble deeds and burglary? I wasn’t entirely certain how the two might go in hand. The idea was one that I wanted to explore later, would have to, given the current circumstances. “Whilst evil walks / so too will we.”

“Mm. You keep mentioning that part.” I rolled my shoulders a bit. “This… Bone Man,” I said, calling the spirit by a name that seemed to fit with the shade’s narrative, “he’s to the south, then?”

The shade nodded. “Seek you he, / beyond the border / south towards stone / the land of Cardolan / his Bones there still roam.”

“And that will be everything you need me to do for you here so you can rest again, I hope?” I asked dubiously. It was never that easy.

The spirit nodded once and moved to continue its floating path around the Dead Spire. I set off to the south and whatever pass might exist through the ridge bisecting the two areas. I had a strange feeling of dread as I walked the hills and barrows that I was moving from the pan to the fire the farther south that I went.