Ring of Darkness

Chapter 3: What's Around the Bend?

The dwarf woke up at dawn and immediately woke Folco.

  • It’s time for me to get ready, my hobbit friend. It would be good to get to Bree today, spend the night there, and from there it’s another five days’ journey to Annúminas… Listen, would your uncle sell me some mangy pony? He’s already made a good profit, maybe he’ll be satisfied with that?

  • We had ponies for sale, - Folco answered, splashing noisily under the washstand. - Talk to him. He’s probably hanging around the kitchen while my aunt is busy in the henhouse… I’ll pack you some food for the road.

The chores briefly distracted Folco from his sad thoughts. It didn’t take the dwarf long to persuade his uncle. With mournful cries and lamentations, praising the virtues of the sold horse to the skies, the uncle managed to get twice the market price from the dwarf. Thorin once again carefully packed the dwarf in his bag, hung his axe on his belt, and fastened his cloak on his left shoulder with a patterned forged fibula.

The entire population of the estate ran out to see off the guest from the distant mountains.

  • So we met and now we part, Folco, son of Hamfast, - said Thorin. - Thank you for everything! For the lodging, for the warmth, for the food and conversation. Thank you for taking me on a hunt for the lost pony, otherwise we would not have met the dwarf. Thank you for your keen eye and steady hand - otherwise we would not have caught him. It’s a pity that I didn’t get to read the Red Book properly, but life is long, and I’m sure we will meet again. When - no one knows, but let’s hope! Don’t be discouraged! You are a glorious people, and I immediately fell in love with you… We could have traveled together… It’s a pity that you have become such homebodies…

The dwarf smiled encouragingly at Folco, bowed respectfully to the society silently staring at them, and led the laden pony out of the gate. There he turned around once more, raised his hand in farewell, mounted the saddle and soon disappeared around the bend.

The hobbits gathered in the courtyard of the estate began to gradually disperse, casting wary glances at Folco, who was lost in thought at the gate. The courtyard was completely empty when he, too, hunched over and with his head bowed, trudged to his room. Uncle Paladin shouted something to him from the other end of the corridor, but Folco paid him no attention.

In the air of his room, the smell of strong, heady dwarven tobacco was still perceptible, the pushed-back armchair still retained the outline of his mighty figure, more accustomed to the hard boards of inns than to the comfort and coziness of hobbit dwellings. Folco sighed and took the blade of Meriadoc, which was lying on the bed, in his hands to hang it in its usual place above the fireplace. And then the unexpected happened. As soon as the hobbit’s fingers touched the ancient bone hilt, polished by the fingers of so many generations of Gondorian warriors, his vision blurred, and he vividly imagined the dwarf, galloping across the endless expanses. The cloak billowed behind Thorin’s shoulders, a polished battle-axe glittered at his belt, and from all sides, from behind every bush, hillock or stone, dwarf archers aimed small but unerring bows at him, and there was no one to warn the dwarf, to caution him, to save him! Folco shook his head, chasing away the strange vision. It faded, but did not disappear, and then he deliberately and noisily began to move a chair to the wall to put the blade in its place.

  • Folco, why don’t you answer when you’re called? - The figure of his uncle appeared on the threshold. - What did I tell you? Get ready, you’ll take the turnips to the market with Mnohorad. Come on, come on, move it, you lazybones, do you think I’ll load the carts for you too? - The uncle continued to chew something, crumbs fell on his chest, he carefully picked them up and sent them to his mouth.

“It’s a pity you’ve become such homebodies…” Thorin’s farewell wave of his hand. And his gaze, no longer directed at the hobbits remaining in their warm and peaceful nest, but at the road running into the distance, at the long and dangerous journey… What does he, a free-living dwarf, care about his, Folco’s, kinsmen, who have long forgotten the tart taste of distant wanderings? And what is left for him, Folco Brandybuck? To take the famous Brandybuck turnip to the market all over Hobbiton?! And to listen to this fat, stupid Uncle Paladin?!

“It’s a pity you’ve become such homebodies…” Folco was filled with a cheerful, reckless anger. Rummaging in the corner, he pulled out a battered knapsack with two straps, spread it on the bed and calmly began to pack. For a while, his uncle stared at him in bewilderment, and then turned purple and roared, sputtering with saliva: - Why don’t you listen to me, huh?! You lazybones, you freeloader, may you be lifted up and slapped down! How dare you?! Why don’t you answer when the head of the Brandybuck clan addresses you?! A true Brandybuck is obliged to be respectful to his elders and to carry out their orders without question! Immediately stop doing this nonsense and go load the carts! Without… - The uncle suddenly broke off.

Folco straightened up and looked at him calmly, without fear or reverence, but with a kind of crooked smile.

  • Don’t shout at me, uncle, - Folco said quietly. - I don’t like it very much… and I’m not going to load any carts. Load them yourself, if you want… I’m busy.

It seemed that Uncle Paladin had lost his mind. He growled, wheezed and rushed forward, raising his hand for a slap on the way. - I’ll get you, you scoundrel!..

Folco took a step back and drew his sword from its scabbard. The young hobbit stood silently and motionless, but the blade was unequivocally aimed at his uncle’s stomach. The latter froze and only gurgled weakly from the fullness of his feelings, listening to Folco’s unusually calm speech:

  • You won’t pull my ears anymore, uncle. And you won’t drive me to work, and you won’t torment me with moralizing, you’ll stop rummaging through my things and you won’t be able to order me around. I’m leaving, and blame yourself if you think of stopping me! And now, farewell.

Folco threw his bag over his shoulders, fastened his sword to his belt, calmly walked around his stunned uncle and walked down the corridor to the kitchen. He took some crackers, dried meat - a supply for several days. There was some movement behind him - Folco turned around, saw his pale uncle slowly moving into the kitchen, grinned and went out into the yard. He crossed it without hurrying, chose and saddled the best pony in the stable. Going out to the gate, he saw the people who had poured out of all the doors and his uncle hurrying towards him, who had lost his usual majestic appearance.

  • Stop him: - his uncle wailed in a voice not his own.

Half a dozen of the bolder hobbits moved towards Folco, who was frozen in the middle of the courtyard, but their impulse immediately died out as soon as he opened his cloak and grabbed the hilt. In a strange blindness, he was now ready to cut down anyone who dared to stand in his way - he just didn’t know how to do it. No one dared to stop him. Folco proudly jumped into the saddle, kicked the pony in the sides with his heels and rode out of the estate gate.

A gust of fresh wind hit the hobbit’s face. His pony was trying its best, there was no turning back, and the hobbit had to hurry - after all, the dwarf had probably managed to get quite far away…

Behind him, a familiar sound was suddenly heard - one of the Brandybucks had foolishly started blowing the signal horn: “Thieves! Fire! Enemies! Everyone up! Thieves! Fire! Enemies!” - the ancient alarm signal in Buckland. Several horns from neighboring farms answered him. Folco saw how their frightened, uncomprehending inhabitants began to run out of the houses standing at a distance from the road. Folco grinned. At that moment, he really liked himself. What did he care about all these bustling hobbits? They had been sitting in the middle of their turnips for three hundred years, and they would sit for another three hundred. And for him - the unknown, the long road, a sword at his side, cold nights under a thin cloak… Folco involuntarily shivered, but then immediately calmed down, remembering that he had prudently taken a warm cloak with him, lined with bird down.

The pony trotted briskly along the well-kept road that wound among numerous fields and farms. It led north, to the Gates of Buckland, where the Hedge ended right at the bank. Folco had been there only once, when they, the younger hobbits, were first taken to a large fair near Hobbiton. Folco had only managed to cast a brief glance at the Great East Road, which ran into the mysterious, bluish-hazed distance. Wide, three times wider than the modest hobbit country road, it proudly pushed apart the forest walls that had fallen on it and went east, straight as a spear shaft. Somewhere out there, beyond the forest - Folco knew this - lay the newly settled hobbit lands, it was not so far to Bree, but then it seemed to him that he was standing on the very edge of the inhabited lands and that beyond the dense forest curtains to the very Misty Mountains you would not find a single living creature. The wagon train then turned long and creakily onto the Brandywine Bridge, Uncle Paladin squealed and cursed at the wagoners, stingily counting out the toll for crossing the bridge, and he, Folco, forgetting everything, stood at his full height on the sacks, unable to tear his gaze from the Great Road, which was rushing towards the horizon and gradually converging into a thin thread. He came to his senses only from a strong slap on the back of the head - why, they say, are you trampling the turnips with your feet, you freeloader! Folco shuddered, a hard and unkind expression appeared on his face, his hand almost theatrically rested on the black scabbard…

The day was clear, sunny, it was a pleasure to ride, and Folco soon forgot about everything, including the fact that he was now a homeless tramp. The road called to him, and every turn seemed to hide a completely special world from him for the time being.

On the road, Folco met many people who stared with curiosity at the young Brandybuck riding somewhere. Folco watched with a grin how the mouths of the hobbits he met opened in amazement as soon as they noticed the cloak sticking out on the left!

He did not notice how the Hedge suddenly blackened in the distance. The crowns of the Old Forest, which had been blue somewhere far to the right, somehow immediately moved closer. Folco was approaching the Gates of Buckland; soon they also appeared. The road made another turn, and the hobbit saw the wide, now open gates, the low watchtowers on the sides and the solid palisade of the Hedge stretching into the distance. Almost all the hobbits from Buckland, having left the Gates, immediately turned left, across the Brandywine Bridge. Folco involuntarily shivered: his path lay to the right.

He passed the Gates without hindrance, rode out into the middle of the crossroads, stood so as not to interfere with those going to the root of Hobbiton, and looked around.

To the west of him, on his left hand, an ancient, blackened with time log bridge, built entirely of gigantic oak trunks, was thrown across the wide Brandywine. It was wide enough - three carts could ride on it in a row. And in front of the bridge, on pillars deeply dug into the ground, a wooden shield was firmly fixed with words carved on it in the Common and Old Elvish languages: “The land of the free people of the hobbits under the protection of the Northern Crown. I command: let no man’s foot cross this border, now, forever and ever, let Hobbiton be governed by the free will of its citizens according to their own understanding. And if any of the men have a need to see any of the hobbits - let him come to the Baranduin Bridge, and send a letter by hobbit post, and wait for an answer at the inn. Given in the fifth year of the Fourth Age, Annúminas, by my own hand - Elessar the Elven, King of Arnor and Gondor.”

On his right side stood the Old Forest as a solid wall, it stretched along the Road for about twenty miles, and then its edge turned sharply to the south, giving way to the fields of the ancient Barrow-downs, about which ancient legends, one more terrible than the other, were still whispered in Hobbiton. Folco had heard that the area around the Barrow-downs, previously empty and abandoned, was now re-inhabited by people. Straight east along the Road should be the famous Bree, with the inn “The Prancing Pony”, known throughout Middle-earth. What was happening further,

to the east, Folco did not really know, he only heard that the Arnorians had reached the Withywindle, plowing up the stagnant, fertile lands everywhere.

Folco dismounted, once again carefully inspected the harness, and adjusted the saddlebags. The guards at the bridge had been looking at him with curiosity for a long time - hobbits armed with bows and slings; this post had been preserved here for many centuries, and the profession of Bridge Guard had become a family one…

Folco involuntarily looked for an excuse to linger. The open spaces still beckoned him, but the thoughts of the unknown awaiting him ahead made him feel uneasy…

A small train of four carts, drawn by well-fed, fattened ponies, and eight hobbits on horseback, all armed - with bows and heavy clubs at their belts, crossed the bridge. They did not turn into Buckland, as Folco first thought, but moved straight east along the Road, one of the riders shouted to him to make way. Folco hastily jumped into the saddle and rode up to the front cart.

  • Where are you heading, venerable ones? - he addressed the hobbits.

  • To the White Downs, - answered the senior hobbit with completely gray hair. - Are you going there too? Then come with us. The road has become unsafe lately. And you here all seem to have fallen from the moon! No one wants to know anything…

The old man waved his hand and slapped his ponies on the sides with the reins. The train moved, and Folco rode next to them. The eight young hobbits on horseback at first looked at him a little warily, but then they thawed and started talking.

And Folco learned that for about two years now, strange events have been happening on the Road. Some people began to attack travelers, robbed, killed everyone without distinction - both hobbits and dwarves, and people too. The elders of the hobbit region at the White Downs brought a complaint to the Steward in Annúminas, who sent a squad. The Arnorians caught someone - and for a while it became calmer, but even now, every now and then, you can find the naked corpse of some poor fellow in a roadside ditch… Since then, the hobbits have begun to travel to Bree and to Hobbiton itself only in groups.

They rode like this for about half an hour; but then Folco realized that at this rate he would never catch up with the dwarf, and, thanking his now very talkative companions, he spurred his pony forward.

“Robbers?” he thought. “Well, let there be robbers. I may be small in stature, but I am agile and not unarmed!”

Time passed, the bridge and the hobbit train were long gone. Folco was now riding in complete solitude. Not a sound came from the depths of the Old Forest, but the further he went, the more timidly the young hobbit glanced at the impenetrable thickets, separated from the Road by a deep ditch. A kind of gray, creeping mist crawled out of the forest; it seemed heavier than air and, like milk spilled in the air, slowly flowed into the roadside ditches. It was quiet, only the hooves of the pony struck the dust dully. Time passed, the solar disk had already completely hidden behind the high ridge of the Old Forest, the Road was quickly being flooded with evening twilight. Folco urged the pony on, bending low to its mane. The evening shadows stretched their long arms after him, and the hobbit began to feel uneasy. He could not tear his eyes from the dark ranks of gigantic trees, from the pouring waves of gray mist, rising ever higher in the roadside ditches; his ears caught every sound that came from the darkness…

Folco tried to keep to the left edge of the Road, but once he had to get closer to the very edge to get around a deep puddle, and his gaze accidentally fell on a ditch full of whitish mist. At the very bottom, Folco saw a blurry dark spot. And suddenly, as if someone had torn a blindfold from the hobbit’s eyes, he realized with horror and involuntary disgust that a dead body was lying in the roadside ditch.

Everything froze inside the hobbit, but from somewhere in the depths of his consciousness another thought appeared: “Whoever he was, no matter how scared you are - cover the dead flesh with earth.” And before fear had time to stop him, Folco sharply pulled the reins.

A hobbit was lying on his back in the ditch. Apparently, he had been killed very recently - only the crows had had time to peck out his eyes. The body, instead of good hobbit clothes, was covered with some coarse, dirty burlap. A black, clotted wound stretched across his entire forehead, diagonally, from his temple to his nose.

Folco could not linger here for long. With every minute the dwarf was getting farther away from him; the hobbit had very little time. All he managed to do was to dig up the edge of the ditch with his sword and cover the body with damp clay. Picking up a few stones from the side of the road, Folco hastily laid out a triangle from them on the side of the road, with the apex pointing towards the head of the deceased.

Having finished and stood for a minute in silence, Folco jumped into the saddle. Time was pressing him, his duty was done, and now fear was once again bearing down on the hobbit. Involuntarily, Folco thought again of the Nine, and, as if in answer to his secret thoughts, from somewhere in the far distance the night wind brought a familiar long howl - an inhuman anguish, poured out to the night sky. Folco had already heard this howl, but then he and the dwarf were sitting in his little room, by the blazing fireplace, under the reliable protection of the old walls; here, in the middle of an empty road, flooded with ghostly night light, next to the just-buried dead body of a kinsman, this howl made Folco look around in fear. A cold sweat broke out on him. And the howl continued, sometimes receding a little, then rolling in again; the pony rushed forward, no longer needing to be urged on. Bending down to the horse’s short-cropped mane, Folco looked back.

Far, far to the west, a narrow strip of sunset sky was visible. The sun had already set in the Great Sea, but the edge of the sky was still colored in greenish tones, and along the very horizon stretched a barely noticeable crimson thread. For a moment, it seemed to the hobbit that against the background of the greenish glow he could distinguish the chiseled towers of the Grey Havens - as they were described in books; the hobbit himself had never been there.

And as soon as he remembered the beautiful elven palaces on the shores of the leaden-gray bay, the ever-roaring Sea, the mysterious Beyond the Sea, where Elbereth, the Bright Queen, whose name the Immortals swear by, lives - his heart brightened, as if someone’s powerful hand had pulled off the gray web of gloomy thoughts that was tightening. Folco raised his head and cheered up; he even began to quietly hum an ancient song, read in the Red Book; it was sung by the elves on their way to their forest fortresses along the ancient road from the Grey Havens. Folco sang the song several more times, but his thoughts involuntarily returned to the dead hobbit, whom he had buried on the side of the Road. Who was he? How did he end up here? Was he walking from Hobbiton to Bree or vice versa? Or maybe he was captured somewhere far from here, at the White Downs, for example, and brought here to be interrogated and finished off? Or maybe he had been a prisoner for a long time, and his unknown masters simply got rid of him when he was no longer needed, when for some reason he could not work for them? Who knows?..

In any case, all this must be told to the Bree-hobbits, to warn them to go here and bury the deceased as it should be, so that he, Folco, could look this hobbit straight in the eye when they, like everyone who had ever lived in Middle-earth, meet beyond the Thundering Seas…

Meanwhile, the night had fully come into its own, the sunset flame in the west had finally died out, but the full moon that had risen above the eastern mountains gave enough light, and the road was straight and even. The pony ran briskly forward, and, according to Folco’s calculations, there were no more than one or two miles left to the edge of the Old Forest. But where was Thorin? Had he really managed to get so far ahead of him? Folco kicked the pony in the sides and at the same moment noticed a low black figure riding on horseback a few hundred paces ahead of him. The hobbit’s pony broke into a full gallop; the rider in front, apparently, heard the clatter of hooves from behind. He sharply reined in his horse and jumped to the ground, the polished steel glittered in the moonlight.

  • Whoever you are - stop! - the rider’s voice thundered, and Folco saw him throw off his wide cloak and wave his right hand, passing it along his thigh. Now the one in front of him was ready for battle - axe at the ready, armor gleaming on his chest.

  • It’s me, me, Thorin! - Folco shouted, rising in his stirrups and waving his hands frantically.

The figure with the axe took a few steps towards him. They were quickly closing in, and now Folco had dismounted next to the bewildered Thorin. - Folco! My hobbit friend, where did you come from?! - Ah! I spat on everything and decided to go with you. As we were saying goodbye, you said that we could travel together.

  • And what about your family, the estate, your uncle? - Nothing. - Folco laughed carelessly. - There will be someone to take the turnips to the market without me. I’m so glad I finally caught up with you! You know, - the hobbit grew gloomy, - I found a body on the road! And that howl… Did you hear it?

  • Wait, wait! You found a body? Whose? Where? But sit down, let’s go on, we can’t go back… Bree is just a stone’s throw away… But tell me!

  • A hobbit. I don’t know him. He was killed very recently - he hadn’t even had time to get stiff. - What was he killed with?

  • His head was split open - with a sword, probably… - Well, that’s something, brother, - Thorin shook his head. - Dashing people are scouring the Road, so let’s pick up the pace, my hobbit friend. We have no business dawdling here. Look, the Barrow-downs are already beginning…

Indeed, the forest was receding, curving sharply to the north and south. The Road broke out of the forest narrows into the expanse of a vast, slightly hilly plain. About a mile ahead of them, the road passed through a deep saddle between two hills. To the left, a barely noticeable country road snaked in the twilight, going north along the edge of the forest. In that direction, in the distance, a few barely noticeable lights flickered. Even further, the blurred outlines of a hilly, forested ridge could be guessed.

  • There are hobbit settlements at the White Downs, - Folco showed his friend. - And over there, to the right, at the Green Road, live the Arnorians. Bree should be right behind the hills…

To the right lay vast fields, dotted with barrows of various heights. Fog filled the spaces between them, and now the barrows seemed like monstrous bubbles that had swollen on the surface of a ghostly sea. Folco involuntarily shivered - somewhere there, a little further to the south, lay the infamous Barrow-downs, where the Barrow-wight had captured four hobbit friends led by Frodo.

For a while they rode in silence, glancing at the Barrow-downs from time to time. The dwarf was the first to become anxious.

  • Do you hear, Folco? They seem to be singing… But so nasally…

The hobbit strained his ears. From behind the hills, he heard the long, mournful sounds of some song, which was being sung by hundreds of voices. The monotonous singing filled his heart with a vague anxiety and immediately made him remember the mysterious howl of the other day… The singing was getting closer.

  • Hey, let’s get out of here quickly! - the dwarf, who had immediately become serious, gritted his teeth.

He turned sharply to the left and pulled his resisting pony down into the roadside ditch. Folco did not hesitate to follow his example. With difficulty pushing their horses off the open space, the hobbit and the dwarf cautiously crawled to the edge of the ditch and looked out, hiding in the tall grass. Thorin pulled his axe from his belt. Folco drew his sword.

Black silhouettes emerged from the darkness one after another. They were horsemen: they were riding real horses, long spears swayed behind their backs; the horsemen moved two by two, at a leisurely pace, heading strictly south - into the fields of the Barrow-downs. Some of them held tar torches in their hands; a whitish smoke stretched over the road. And the mournful singing continued in the same way.

The head of the column had long since sunk into the fog that hid the foot of the barrows, and new and new horsemen appeared from behind the hill. Several carts passed, followed by foot soldiers. As if someone’s brush had drawn a bluish-black darkness on the gray-silver field of moonlight - so this infantry flowed in a solid stream, following the horsemen who had disappeared into the fog. The weapons did not clang, the moonlight did not play on the polished armor - everything was impenetrably black, and only the mournful singing in an unknown language broke the nocturnal silence.

Finally, the whole procession disappeared into the fog. Folco followed it with his eyes and suddenly noticed the Deception Stone, standing on the top of the nearest barrow. Its flat faces suddenly flashed with a crimson flame, as if a dark lightning had struck the top of the enchanted hill. A few minutes later, exactly the same metamorphosis occurred with the stone on the next barrow; a long chain of winking lights stretched into the darkness, the fog lit up, as if a gigantic bonfire had been lit in its depths. And then from somewhere in the south came the already familiar piercing howl. The dwarf covered his ears with his palms. Now this howl seemed to be filled with a hidden and vengeful joy, as if someone had finally got their hands on a weapon for a long-planned revenge; it mocked and laughed - being able to express it in only one single way. For the first time, the dwarf and the hobbit were truly scared.

They did not dare to move for a long time. The dwarf was the first to come to his senses.

  • What kind of evil has infested the domains of the King of Arnor! - he said in a whisper. - You know, my hobbit friend, let’s get out of here quickly. I don’t like it here…

They led their horses back onto the Road, involuntarily bending down and trying to stay in the black shadow of the rare roadside trees. Folco looked around fearfully, the dwarf only grumbled hoarsely through his teeth. As he was getting into the saddle, he hit the bag with the dwarf with his forged boot. A quiet whimper came from the bag.

Soon they reached the edge of the ravine, at the bottom of which a small stream ran; a stone bridge was thrown over it. Some buildings were visible behind it.

The travelers crossed the bridge. Cultivated fields stretched around, fences made of poles appeared along the road, several country roads branched off to the right and left. Another half an hour’s journey - and the black Bree fence loomed ahead. The road ended at the gates, which were tightly closed at night, a light flickered in the turret. The dwarf grumbled and reached into his bosom.

  • There are two of us… and two ponies… two quarters of a toll for sure…

Another barely noticeable path separated from the main Road and went left, running somewhere to the south along the fence. Above the forged ends of the sharpened logs, roofs covered with shingles were visible. Somewhere dogs barked.

The dwarf rode right up to the gate and, pulling his axe from his belt, knocked loudly with the butt. For a while there was silence, then a small window opened in the gate, and someone’s hoarse voice, sleepy, asked:

  • Who are the werewolves dragging in their teeth? Can’t you wait until morning?

  • What do you mean, until morning! - Thorin got angry. - Are we supposed to sleep on the street? Here, take the toll for two and open up! - He stuck the money in the window. - And who are you?

  • Thorin, son of Dart, a dwarf from the Lunar Mountains, on my way to Annúminas on business! And with me - Folco Brandybuck, son of Hamfast, my companion and comrade. Let us pass, venerable one!

  • All right, all right, you’re in a hurry… I’ll unlock it now…

The gates opened, and a long, dark street lay behind them. The old gatekeeper, grumbling something under his breath, leaned his shoulder against the gate and put on the bolt. Folco breathed a sigh of relief. They were in Bree.