If you’ve never tried to ride up on a suspicious folk living in the ruins of an actual ancient, still defensible fort, I would suggest doing so with caution. Our approach to Ost Guruth – apparently, the word “ost” means “fort” in Sindarin – had guards on the front-facing stairwell hailing us with very real threats as soon as we arrived. It took mentioning Gadaric Munce’s name and a flash of a token that he had given us at some point in our duties for him for the armed men to allow us passage further inside. That was where we met Frideric the Elder, who only believed our tale when we showed him our Eglain relics. Even so, his trust only went so far, and both Dandelion and I found ourselves once more working to aid these people when we woke in the morning. “I’m going to start stabbing,” I had grumbled to her.
“Don’t you dare, young man,” she had replied firmly, adding something about jerking a knot in my tail if I tried.
The biggest threats to the Eglain in Ost Guruth, we found, were spiders, wargs, and orcs, though half-orcs also infested some of the ruins of the area, and some of the other Eglain sent us into the swamps where dead things roamed. Dandelion had patted my forearm when she heard me cursing under my breath once we found out about the latter. It had been a testament to her understanding of my utter loathing of the undead that she hadn’t chastised me on my language instead.
Only after we had killed enough of these creatures that the Forsaken were safe did Frideric finally allow us to do more than ask about Radagast the Brown. “Morchandir,” he intoned gravely, “you have proven over and again the sincerity of your claims. It is only fair then that we honor our request and provide you the information that you require.
I stirred to reply with “How good of you to grace us with the critical information that we need to save the world after all this backbreaking labor we’ve offered,” but Dandelion elbowed me in the side so that all I got out was, “How g-” before I grunted. Frideric offered us a skeptically lofted brow, but I grumbled, “Thank you” instead.
He continued. “Radagast is ever a friend to our people. He comes to us now as a favor to our leader who called him when the wildlife in Agamaur turned foul.”
I blinked. Leader? I wondered. I thought Frideric was the leader? Are we going to need to do more chores for someone before we’re allowed to do anything helpful like actually speak with this wizard?
Frideric turned and motioned toward the hindmost parts of the run-down fortress. “He is in private study in the last tower in the back of the ruins of Ost Guruth.” He added “the place where we make our home” afterward, much to my confusion.
As if we hadn’t received that information repeatedly over the last little while? I thought. I suddenly wondered if “the Elder” wasn’t a title but a warning of his spotty memory. “Err, yes,” I offered awkwardly.
He seemed not to notice. “Seek him out. Perhaps there is a way that both of you can aid the other.”
“Thank you,” Dandelion offered. I nodded in agreement as politely as I could, stepped away, and walked off to the back of Ost Guruth. Once I was safely out of earshot of the man, I growled at the hobbit beside me, “If we get to this tower and find out Radagast moved on a day ago while we were stabbing half-orcs and entirely too-large spiders, I swear to Eru…”
“Easy, grandson,” she replied softly. “The Eglain would have told us if he had left.”
I snorted. “You have a great deal more faith in humanity’s desire for free labor than I do, Gammer.”
“Perhaps I still believe that most people will do the right thing when given the chance,” she argued.
I looked at her in disbelief. “You really HAVE been knocked in the head once too often.”
She glared up at me. “Morchandir…” she growled in warning.
I found myself saved by our arrival at the tower. We had been here once or twice already to help one of the Eglain, a girl named Hana, whose words had stymied us further. A woman draped in vines and reeds had been found beyond a wall to the north in a place named Agamaur, but she had been hostile. From what Hana had told us, the woman sounded like a wizard. Perhaps it was why Radagast was here, now? One of his own had turned from her course? I waved to her as we passed and Dandelion growled up at me. “We’re here,” I told the hobbit to stay her wrath.
The door wasn’t terribly heavy despite its appearance when I heaved it. In fact, it was light enough that I almost slammed it into my masked face before I could catch it. Gammer snickered, and I let her do so as payment for my comment about hitting her head. Not that it’s not true, I amended privately as we stepped inside the tower.
We had to mount the stone steps circling upward since nobody stood in the bottom level. When we reached the top, we found an older man dressed in brown, a desk, plenty of lighting, open windows to the world outside, and bookshelves full of books and scrolls. Radagast didn’t look imposing. Then again, neither had Gandalf, though at least he had been tall and thin. Radagast was shorter and stockier, and his earthen brown robes made him seem darker despite having the beard and hair of an old Man. He looked up from where he sat at the desk writing and appeared unsurprised to see us.
“The Eglain let you in, did they?” he greeted us almost irritably.
“They did,” Dandelion answered, which was a good thing considering my initial response was to tell him that I’d sneaked in because I was the greatest thief in the world. “Candaith sent us here because of a glyph we found on Weathertop when we investigated a disturbance there.”
“Three lines,” I added. “One vertical and two angled up and to the right from it, with four dots at the cardinal points.”
Radagast’s gaze sharpened as we spoke. He motioned for us to come forward silently. “I am Radagast the Brown, master of shapes and hues, but then you must know that if you have truly met Gandalf.” I frowned, having remained silent regarding our true mission here, and he continued. “How did I know about Gandalf? You mentioned the rubbing from the top of Amon Sûl. I do believe it is a G-rune, a mark oft used by Gandalf, another of my order. I guessed from the description of those three lines that he was at Amon Sûl on October the third, naught but a few days past.” He sketched out the G-rune on a small sheaf of blank parchment nearby. “This one?”
I nodded. “Gandalf told me to come find you, too,” I added as I rocked back on my heels. “Something to do with a gathering of evil forces, Black Riders, powerful undead things…”
He waved me to silence. “It’s as much as I feared. If Candaith saw such lights above Weathertop as he claims, then I fear Gandalf had found trouble there. I have not seen him since we parted at Sarn Ford, so I can tell you no more of him or his travels.” He frowned as he looked out a nearby window. “Of this place, I can tell you much, but make reason of very little.”
“Then maybe some of my information can aid you, given I was sent for that purpose,” I told him. I wanted to do something more than chores for people before they let me help them. It was ludicrous to me how dire a situation might be for them, yet they wanted me to waste time on tasks unrelated to it before offering me the information I required.
“The land itself is turning against us, and I know not the reason why,” Radagast explained. “Even the shepherds are twisted shadows of their former selves.” At our blank looks to his frustrated tone, he offered, “I speak of the bog-prowlers, those that tend to the trees.”
I glanced down at Dandelion and found her doing the same for me. “Bog-prowlers tend to trees?” she asked with a frown. “H… how, though?”
“They protect the trees, huorn or otherwise, from fell creatures who might harm them,” Radagast stated brusquely. “With the land as it is, here, the shepherds have become violent even to harmless creatures.”
I grimaced. “That’s not good.”
He shook his head in agreement. “It is not.” He pressed his lips together. “If I can discern what is twisting the shepherds, I may be able to determine what is fouling the land. Bring me the moss that they use to line their nests. They roam the swamp to the east of here.”
It was my turn to shake my head. “How will that help you?” I wondered aloud.
“The land has corrupted the matter. Trees. Grasses. Mosses. Animals, too. The very water itself. By bringing it here to me, I can sense that corruption as surely as another of my order might sense the poison in someone’s body and trace it back to its source. What we take in from our surroundings becomes part of us.”
“Makes me wonder what Holly Hornblower did to ruin her pies with spoiled ingredients,” Dandelion muttered mostly to herself, her eyes squinting suspiciously.
I focused on Radagast. “Bog-prowlers. They aren’t the undead we’ve encountered in the swamp—” I began.
“Haragmar,” he corrected idly. “Also known as the Red Swamp.”
I offered a dubious expression in return. “Right. They aren’t the undead, though. What do they look like?”
Dandelion spoke up before the wizard could do so. “Tall legs like yours,” she said, gesturing at me. “But very spindly. And there are four of them. Their bodies are a little onion shaped, that I’ve seen.” Her hands moved as she spoke. “They grow quite a bit of moss over their backs, cattails and even trees or shrubs, and vines around their legs. They have very strange looking heads, though. They remind me of turtle heads.”
I opened my mouth to say something even as I twitched at the mention of turtles, realized what it was that she had described, and closed it again. “Moss-backs and marsh-tenders,” I said. “They were in the Gladden Fields when I traveled with the caravans to guard them.”
Radagast looked surprised. “You’ve been in the Gladden?” he asked. “I suppose you do sound Dalish, when I think on it.” He flipped his quill at me. “Height is a Gondoran’s, but who knows what your face looks like with that ridiculous mask.” I shot a look at him that he didn’t see. Ridiculous mask my rosy bottom. “Go now and fetch the moss for me.” He looked up and his voice became stern. “Remember, I do not wish to harm the shepherds, no matter how confused they appear. They are innocent victims of the corruption and know not the harm they do.”
“So, if they attack us, we can’t kill them no matter what?” I countered. “Forget my mask, THAT is ridiculous!”
“All the same, it’s what I require,” he replied. “If you’re truly here to aid me, you’ll follow those directions.” He nodded at the stairwell. “Off with you.” He dismissed us at that point by going silent and focusing back on his writing.
The sound of Dandelion’s armor took me out of my thoughts of what my chances were leaping for the wizard to throttle him at how curt and rude he had been. Not particularly good, I’d wager, I told myself as I followed her down the corkscrewed steps. “Just consider it a test of how good of a thief you are,” Gammer offered once we had left the tower.
“I thought I wasn’t supposed to be a thief?” I retorted perhaps too sharply. I still felt irritated by the wizard’s attitude. He acted as if he cared more about the animals and plants than the humans involved!
She didn’t reply for a moment or two. “We aren’t supposed to be many things,” she finally told me. “But that doesn’t mean we have to use those things for ill purposes.” She nodded forward. “Let’s fetch the horses and ride out to the Red Swamp. The Eglain should know more precisely where the most lurkers are nesting at this time if Radagast has only arrived very recently.”
* * * * *
“The Circle of Blood.” I sighed. “Why not the Circle of Pretty Fish? Or the Bakers’ Circle?”
Dandelion took on a wistful look. “The Circle of Pies.”
I snorted softly. “Just not that Holly hobbit’s, from what you said earlier.”
She grimaced and looked peeved for some reason. “I cannot believe a hobbit like that would allow spoiled pies out into the Shire! It goes against nature!”
I stared at her and then waved a hand around us where we stood. “Gammer. Have you really taken a look around us? The water is crimson. The smell has blood in it, and I have no idea why. There is a fortress just up there that practically oozes menace so that I’m not keen on getting any closer, and even these bog-lurkers are corrupted enough to kill things because they want their blood. Spoiled pies are unfortunate. THIS place goes against nature.”
She blinked at me as if I’d spoken Elvish. “You have been too long out of the Shire, grandson. I wish your parents had never left.” She turned from me and pointed. “I see an untended nest just over there. I’ll keep lookout for you while you get to it and take the moss.”
“We’ll have to pull some from more than one nest to make sure,” I said with a roll of my shoulders. “If it’s widespread, then we won’t have to come back for more to prove it that way.” She nodded in agreement and moved to take up position near one of the scraggly trees in the area. I waited for her to get there before stepping through the liquid morass of the Circle of Blood toward my first target.
I spotted more than one bog-lurker wading around on their stilted legs in the near distance. Avoiding them, I crept up to the empty nest, bared a short knife, and sliced away some of the moss. I could see another nest not far away and made for it to do the same. I paused for a moment away from the first nest to bind the moss from it into a tiny little bundle. Keeping them separate would be for the best.
I found a third nest, a fourth, but had problems with finding others. The nests had no real rhyme or reason to where they were placed other than atop small bits of dry land in the midst of the muck and mire. The trouble with the Circle was that it wasn’t actually a circle; the islets that dotted it moved in and out of the larger area so that I would find myself wandering too far away and need to backtrack. After a good hour and a half, I had nine small bundles of moss tucked away in my clothing and found myself back at Dandelion’s lookout point. “I think that’s all of them,” I told her.
She shook her head. “Not quite. There’s one more in that direction.” She pointed. “I saw the lurker stand up from where it was sitting on it and walk away a bit ago.”
I followed where she had pointed and growled. “I missed that one, then, yes. There are two around it.”
She shook her head. “If we take back all but one nest’s worth, I doubt that it will make much difference. Especially if they’re all tainted.”
I sighed. “But if this one isn’t?” I asked. “Why would it not be when the others are? You know he’ll ask that.”
“Morchandir,” Dandelion began in exasperation. I stopped her by pulling my nine little moss bundles out and offering them to her. “Just hold these,” I told her. “I’ll be back with this last one and then we’ll take them to Radagast. If we’ve missed any others, he can come out and get them himself.”
“I shouldn’t have mentioned it,” she groused as she accepted the moss and found homes for them in one or two of her pouches. They would be far safer there than in my pockets at this point. “Go but keep an eye out for that bog prowler. It may come back at any moment if there are… eggs?” We looked at one another in consternation, both obviously wondering where, exactly, baby bog-creatures might come from.
“Seedlings?” I offered quietly.
“Cuttings,” she countered.
“Shoots.” I nodded and turned away. “I’ll be right back.”
“Sprouts!” she hissed after me triumphantly as I crept away once more.
I found no sign of the lurker as I made it to the nest. I got my clipping, tied it up, and pocketed it without incident. I was easing my way from the nest when my luck ran out. I heard a strange growling, purring sound from neither wight nor warg just before I felt myself grabbed by the leg and jerked backward.
I went face-first into the muck and mire of the Circle of Blood wondering, yet again, how I would possibly get the stench of the stagnant water out of my clothing and yet relieved it wasn’t turtles I was after this time. That was, until I realized I’d been yanked into water deep enough to cover my head as I lay there and had a pressure lying against my back holding me beneath the surface.
No, no, I refuse to drown in six inches of stinking bog water just because I needed to get moss from a marsh-tender nest for a bloody mad wizard, I railed. The trouble was that, as I set my hands into the ground beneath the water to push myself up against the spindly-legged creature’s weight, they sank into the soft mush to make it more difficult. I had some choice words in my head for the situation. Plan two, I told myself as I drew one of my knives.
I couldn’t count on Dandelion this time. Her tiny stature and heavier armor would weight her down as she slogged through the water. What was only to my knees at most would be almost to her waist. If I killed one, I’m sure that Radagast would somehow know. I would need to wound it non-lethally if I meant to survive. Finding its other front leg and slashing it might do the trick. I would need to work fast, however, since I had to do it blind and only had a finite amount of air to use while thrashing about.
I received a blow to the back of my head. Stares flared and died in my eyes as my ears rang and I lay there just under the water. I couldn’t move. The blasted thing had cuffed me, hard, and I lost precious moments trying to collect myself once again. My lungs had begun to burn by the time I righted my head enough to stop from breathing in. Rancid water in my clothing? Tolerable. That same water in my internal organs? Unacceptable.
The weight lifted unexpectedly. Splashing noises erupted from nearby on both sides. I tried to get my legs beneath me to push myself forward and up – and felt rough hands grabbing my clothing near the back of my neck and along my spine. Whoever it was, they were strong, hauling me up and tossing me forward so that I landed heavily on my stomach. The air was forced out of my lungs, but I registered dry land beneath me in enough time to breath in deeply. I still had my knife clutched in one hand even if loose earth now frosted me like cocoa powder. I coughed and breathed, getting back my bearings, before squeezing shut my eyes to try clearing them of the fetid liquid burning them.
More splashing sounded, moving away, before slower noises and voices approached me. “Durin’s beard,” one of them proclaimed. “What’s he got on his bleedin’ head?”
Before I could do more than identify the voice as dwarven for the oath used, another voice, smoother and more cultured, said, “I believe it is a mask. Though why a human might wear one out here is fascinating.”
Dandelion joined in as she hurried to my side. “Grandson, are you well?” she asked as she helped me sit up. “I saw you take a blow to the back of your head.”
I reached up to pull off my sodden beaked mask and let it splat messily into my equally sodden lap. I blinked as the swamp water stung my eyes. “I’ve been better,” I told her flatly. She went fussing around the back of my head. I glanced toward the newcomers with a wince and grunted a welcome. “Here we are, way out in the Circle of Blood in Hargammer—”
“Haragmar,” corrected Dandelion idly. “Be still, Morchandir, I’m trying to see if you’ve broken your skull open.”
I rolled my eyes. “I did that years ago if I’m undertaking this bloody quest for a bunch of wizards and madmen,” I assured her. Returning to the new duo, I continued. “Haragmar,” I enunciated properly. “And we happen to come across…” I lifted a hand to point at them. “A dwarf and an elf. Don’t tell me you happened to be passing by a death-infested land of blood and evil and decided to stop for a picnic. I still have my knife in hand and a need to stab something.” I lifted it and waved it side to side to illustrate.
The dwarf boomed out a hearty laugh. “Oh, no, young Man. As much as I wish otherwise, I am a Hunter leading this…” He glanced toward the tall elf beside him. “This ELF out of danger in Harloeg to the south.”
The blonde Elf looked back at the Hunter and sniffed slightly. “I was in no danger,” he replied evenly. “I felled the trolls quickly enough without you.”
The dwarf harrumphed as if he were about to spit to the side. “So says the elf who shoots a bow worse than I do!” he retorted.
I lifted my hands. “I really don’t care,” I interjected. “I’m just thanking you both for the timely rescue and sending you on your way.” I motioned with a thumb at the hobbit behind me. “I have enough trouble with Gammer, here. I don’t need your flavor of lunacy, too.”
“Well, Morchandir, was it?” the elf asked, peering at me with uncomfortably close scrutiny. “How did you receive a Sindarin name, I wonder? And such a dark one, at that. Shadow-man.”
Dandelion’s fingers pressed a little too hard on my bruising head as she heard that. “Is that what it means?” At my gasp of pain, she lightened her hands with a muttered, “Terribly sorry, love.”
“Burglar, Gammer, remember?” I replied as I waved at her hands with my own gloved ones. “I come from the Dale-lands.”
“Shire,” Dandelion offered as she moved away.
“Dale-lands,” I repeated firmly. The elf watched the interplay with interest. “Sindarin words and phrases can get picked up easily if you know where to listen.”
“Then why does this hobbit call you her grandson?” the elf asked in confusion. “You’re very obviously a Man and she’s very obviously a hobbit.”
Dandelion set her mailed fists on her hips to glower at the dwarf. “Oh, he didn’t tell you?” she said angrily.
The dwarf shifted on his feet uneasily. “We should return to Ost Guruth,” he said quickly. “Up, young Morchandir.”
“I don’t even know your names,” I pointed out. I glanced over at the Guardian and then back at the dwarf with a blank expression. “Do you both know each other?”
“Yes!” she snapped at the same time he said, “No!”
The elf brightened instantly. “Oh, this is very intriguing,” he offered.
I rubbed at my face. “And you are?” I asked him.
He blinked as if he’d only remembered he hadn’t introduced himself and then smiled cheerily. “My name is Tinendail of Imladris. I’m a Champion.” He waved toward the other male. “This is a dwarf.”
I looked his way. “I would’ve never guessed.”
Said dwarf, red beard and all, looked over at me after a last wary look at Dandelion. “Name’s Trennil Sharp-axe.” He patted the black-hafted weapon at his side carved of ebony. “And this is Maedhrais. She is my pride and joy.”
“Scoundrel,” growled a furious Dandelion. “So was I, not so long ago.”
I looked between the dwarf and the hobbit in consternation. “Uhh. Gammer, no offense, but he’s old enough to be your son.” I took another look at the dwarf. “I think? I have no idea how old he is, but he doesn’t look—”
Trennil pushed at the air to stop me with a desperate air, but he was too late. Dandelion yelled out, “He’s your grandfather, Morchandir!”
The Hunter dropped his hands with a heavy sigh. Tinendail’s dark brows rose as his pointed ears perked just like a puppy’s upon hearing something. I sat in silence for a long moment before I turned and grunted as I slowly started crawling back to the bog water. “Drowning is better. Just leave me here. Farewell.”
Tinendail laughed and hurriedly moved to me. He placed his hands under my arms and hefted me upward without too much trouble. Blasted elves and their unnatural strength, I groused as I put my feet beneath him. “Oh, don’t say that, friend burglar!” he trilled brightly. “Besides, if you drown yourself, however will I study you?” I rose to my full height and looked down at him, which seemed to surprise him, delight him, even more. “Such a tall Man, and we are not small as Elves! Delightful! Tell me where you’re from?”
“You mad bat,” Trennil told Dandelion from nearby as he wildly waved his arms. “I told you when I left that I wasn’t married to you! I’m not even a hobbit!”
She gasped and set a hand at her chest. “How dare you! What will the children say when they hear?!” She pointed at me. “You’re going to tell your grandson that you were never married to his Gammer?”
I stared at the elf. I looked toward the arguing pair of much-shorter individuals. I rubbed my face with both gritty, muddied hands and made a sound that I noted, in a distant and clinical way, sounded a lot like a whimper for mercy. What did I do to deserve this? I silently begged the powers-that-be. Was it the thefts? Was it the stabbings? Was it when I punched Arne and broke his nose back when I was eight? Dropping my hands, I bent to retrieve my mask and started walking back toward Ost Guruth. Maybe I would get lucky and something dead would eat everyone but me.