Chapter 17. The Song

When Thorn and the hunters reached the pass, the scout they’d left to watch said, ‘They’re nearly all across. It won’t be long.’

 ‘Right,’ Thorn said. Looking around, he added, ‘There’s no cover to speak of here. We’ll just have to pick them off as they come, and any that break through will have to be cut down. They’re big, and tough — it’ll take more than one arrow to bring one down, I think, especially since we don’t have tips.'

He positioned a part of his hobbits on the trail just behind the pass and sent the others up and over the ridge, looking down on the trail. It would be a longer shot for these, but they’d have more cover behind the rocky ridge, and they could drop stones down on the gobble-ums when they ran out of arrows.

They didn’t have long to wait before the lookout whistled the alarm, and then hobbit arrows were raining down upon the gobble-uns. Without the metal points they didn’t do as much damage as the deadlier hunting arrows might have, but the hunters made each shot count and the first few gobble-uns in the bunch fell screaming from the path, each pierced by brightly feathered shafts.

Still, the creatures were large and tough and more than hunger and rage burned in their eyes. Despite the rain of arrows and rocks from above the creatures kept advancing, and worse, quite a few began to climb the very cliff to confront the defenders above.

Thorn shot until he’d used his last arrow, then began to throw rocks. He heard screams above — Apple’s voice among them! — and several hobbit bodies plunged from the heights. The gobble-uns were overrunning the high defences, even as they began to press the hobbits on the trail behind the pass. ‘Keep fighting!’ he shouted desperately. ‘For the People!’ His next throw caught a gobble-un on the cheek and the creature fell back, nearly losing its footing, before advancing again.

Hobbits were falling around him, even as they slashed at the advancing gobble-uns with their axes and cast stones into the grinning faces. A black shaft knocked the wind from the leader of the Fallohides and he fell to the path, dragging himself up again, reaching for his staff and swinging wildly. Another arrow found him and he collapsed against the cliff, trying to draw breath that wouldn’t come. ‘Fight!’ he gasped, even as he saw Boxthorn fall. ‘Fight...’ he whispered, and then the noise of the battle faded and he descended into darkness.

***

Pick marked the passage of time by day and night. In the daytime the sun shone dazzlingly bright, in the night the stars shone coldly down. Pick’s furs kept him warm, and when hunger gnawed too deeply, he waited for the father bird to hunt and the mother to doze, and then he cut slivers of meat from the stiffening haunch of one of the small deer that shared his plight and choked the meat down.

His hurts were worse on the second day, but when the father was gone and the mother napped he cautiously exercised his joints and muscles, all but the disjointed arm which had frozen into place. The slightest movement shot agony through his shoulder, but he gritted his teeth. He’d have to get down the mountain somehow, even if he had only one usable hand.

By the fourth day he was a little less stiff, and because the father kept hunting and bringing back fresh game the great birds overlooked the small hobbit curled beneath a shield of furry bodies at the far side of the nest.

The roar of the wind had lessened, and when the father left to hunt Pick crawled out from beneath his furry shield and peered over the side of the nest. The clouds were gone and he looked down a sheer drop onto other peaks that jutted up like teeth below him. He supposed the shadows between were valleys, filled perhaps with forest and stream. There must be a fair amount of game, for the father bird was never away for very long before returning with more food.

Hearing the shriek of the returning hunter, he dropped back down behind the pile of bodies, and not a moment too soon. The babies grew hungrier with each day, it seemed, and the father was hunting more often. Now he dropped another small deer into the nest. ‘They’re growing,’ he panted. ‘I thought they’d like something more substantial.’

 ‘Lovely,’ his mate agreed. ‘Look, my dears, nice, warm and steaming, and plenty for all!’ She plunged her beak into the deer’s belly and the babies set up an excited clamour for the treat. Too soon the deer was gone and the father turned to the dwindling heap of rabbits with a sigh.

 ‘I’ll help you feed them full,’ he said, ‘and then I’ll seek another young deer. I found a nice herd of fat hinds below; plenty more where that one came from. If they’ll just take a nice long nap I’ll be able to fill up the larder again.’

 ‘Poor dear, you’re working yourself to skin and bones,’ his mate said softly before taking the next mouthful of rabbit he’d torn free and was extending to her. ‘You take the next bite, these babes won’t starve.’

 ‘Much obliged,’ he said after swallowing a hunk of bloody meat. ‘They’re slowing down, don’t you think?’

 ‘I should think so! An entire deer!’ the mother said fondly, taking another piece and putting it into the widest-open mouth before her. ‘I think they’re just filling up the corners with these rabbits. They ought to be napping soon.’

 ‘Good,’ the father said, grabbing another rabbit and plunging his beak into it.

 ‘Now then, darlings,’ the mother soothed, while the father tore the entrails from the latest rabbit. He’d nearly come to the bottom of the pile that sheltered the hobbit.
 
 ‘Here you are, my dear,’ the father said helpfully, and the mother took the pieces and methodically filled the hungry mouths. ‘Aren’t they finished yet?’

 ‘Just a few more rabbits, I think,’ the mother said. The children were slowing down, not quite so frantic in their cries, but still demanding more.

A few rabbits more and that pile was done; the father hopped over, closing one great claw about Pick as he prepared to plunge his beak into the hobbit. ‘Ah, this one’s nice and fresh!’ he said with satisfaction. ‘Still twitching!’

***

Thorn awakened suddenly to pain and a suffocating feeling. He half expected to find himself being borne along, on his way to fill the gobble-uns’ bellies, but no, he was still lying against the cliff, surrounded by unmoving bodies, gobble-uns... and hobbits. He wondered; had the gobble-uns defeated them and continued after the main body of the People? No, he thought, for they’d face another fight, and there was plenty of meat for the pot lying about the pass. Surely they’d have taken what was at hand, freshly butchered, and made use of it.

He was hot and cold at the same time and realised he was burning with fever. Thirsty, he tried to reach for his water bottle, but his limbs were heavy and slow to respond. A breeze blew, and a sudden flurry of snow blessed his burning cheeks. Another storm was blowing from the mountain tops, for though it was still warm and pleasant in the valleys below, winter came early in the high passes. The People had finished the mountain passage in good time.

He tried to count the gobble-uns he could see, but a mist was before his eyes. Besides, he didn’t know how many might have fallen from the path into the abyss below. Had they killed all the gobble-uns, or hadn’t they? He suspected he’d never know the truth. Even as he turned over the thought of pushing himself up and away from the cliff wall, beginning the long trek to rejoin the People, another part of him knew that he’d reached his end.

 ‘End,’ he whispered, and then was most surprised to hear an answer.

Not the end, a Voice whispered.

 ‘Are you the one who brought the warning?’ Thorn asked weakly. He did not know this voice.

I have come to take you home, the Voice answered. It is time to rest.

 ‘Who are You?’ Thorn said, for though it was becoming harder to breathe, the curiosity of his kind would not be denied. His mother’s exasperated You’ll probably be asking a question with your last breath! rang in his memory.

When he was answered, he could hear a smile in the Voice. I am Namo, the answer came, the Voice growing stronger in his mind, closer perhaps, but most call me by another name, Mandos.

 ‘I don’t know You,’ Thorn said after a moment. ‘Not by either name.’

 You will know me, the Voice said, somehow soothing and strengthening at the same time.

 ‘The People,’ Thorn protested. He no longer felt as if he were suffocating, instead he was drawing deep breaths of fresh, bracing air as the pain fell away.

 They are safe, the Voice said. Those who hunted them are dead, and they have passed beyond the malice of the Dark Power in the darkening wood.

 ‘Why did you help us?’ Thorn asked. ‘Are you a friend of the Lady?’

Astonishingly, he heard laughter, deep, rich and musical, washing over him in waves that soothed away the last of the lingering pain and fear.

 We have been watching over your People ever since their first Notes were sounded, the Voice answered. Their greatest part is yet to come in the Song.

Thorn nodded, feeling sleepy. The snow was falling more thickly about him, blanketing the still forms in softness.

Come with me, the Voice said. You have saved your People with your wisdom and humility and your listening heart. There was a pause, and the Voice added, I have been granted permission to show you something of their Song, even as your Lady showed you your children in the new land.

 ‘How?’ Thorn asked sleepily.

Take my hand, he heard, and he saw a large hand extended to him, while a ethereal face of indescribable radiance smiled above him. He reached out, felt a firm grasp close about his hand, and was lifted, not to his feet, but somehow beyond. He could see clearly, through the blowing snow, the bodies scattered over the trail, including his own shell still leaning against the cliff as the snow drew its blanket over him.

 ‘Where are we going?’ he asked.

To see some of your descendants, yours, and Pick’s, came the answer.

 ‘Pick’s dead,’ Thorn said, and somehow the words did not tear at his heart as they had before. There was no more pain, no more grief, no sorrow in the Presence that held him. He heard that marvellous laughter again.

I have not yet fetched him to my halls, Namo answered through his laughter. He has a few Notes left to sing before his time is through.

They passed through clouds and over a great field where a battle was raging, Men and gobble-uns and creatures that Thorn could not even name, one more terrible than the rest, a pale king robed in Shadow, facing a defiant, golden-haired woman. As Thorn watched, a hobbit that reminded him of Blackthorn crawled behind the king, stabbing upwards, and then the woman drove her sword between crown and mantle. The sword burst into sparkling shards that tumbled, consumed before they hit the ground, and the king was gone, swallowed up by Nothing.

Thorn felt himself lifted away into cloud and then they swooped again above another part of the battle... or perhaps it was another battle, for instead of a burning city of white stone, an enormous black gate reared before the battleground. Thorn stiffened, drawn out of his detachment as he saw... Pickthorn? ‘Pick!’ he shouted, only to hear Namo chuckle.

Not Pickthorn, Namo said, but another, one of his great-, great-, great-, great-, many greats of grandsons. The hobbit in black and silver livery stood firm against the onslaught of terrifying large creatures that hammered down the taller Men around him; he stabbed upwards at one creature, bringing it down in a rush of black blood.

 ‘What now?’ Thorn asked as he was lifted away from the scene. He craned to see the hobbit’s fate, but the small form was lost beneath the great creature he’d felled, the melee closed in around them, and then the swirling mists hid the battle from his sight.

They emerged from the mists over another great field with ranks of Men drawn up in long lines. Another battle? But no. The roars that emerged from many throats resolved into cries of praise; the waving swords were raised in acclamation. Two small figures sat upon the highest seat of three, the centre of the storm of praise. One of them he did not know, though he was reminded of Beechnut in the tilt of the chin. The other looked as Thorn imagined Pick would look when older, or like the reflection of himself he’d seen in a pool in his younger days. ‘Another of Pick’s grands?’ he asked in bemusement. He was answered by a chuckle, and the mists surrounded them once more.

One more Note, Namo said, and then I think it will be time to sing you Home.

They stood upon a meadow brilliantly green and thick with flowers. Hobbits were there, sitting or sprawling or reclining upon blankets upon the grass, singing a song that sounded something like the new song the People had begun after crossing the River. Three more hobbits were approaching the group, an older hobbit with silvering hair who might have been Thorn’s brother, such was the resemblance between them, a younger hobbit who looked like Blackthorn, and between them they were escorting a golden-haired lass great with child.

 ‘Fine news!’ the older hobbit sang out as they reached the blankets. ‘The Master of Buckland has welcomed his first grandson!’

 ‘Hurrah!’ the hobbits shouted, and a tiny golden-haired girl clapped her dimpled hands and crowed with delight.

 ‘And tell me,’ the older hobbit said as he helped ease the expectant mother down, ‘when am I to greet my latest grandchild?’

 ‘Sooner than later, to my way of thinking,’ she laughed as the young hobbit on her other side kissed her hand before releasing it.

The older hobbit sprawled upon the blanket and was soon covered with small children with curls of gold and bronze and richest ebony. As he gathered them all into his arms, he said, ‘Who needs to dig for gold? I have all I need right here!’

 ‘You have gold, and Diamonds,’ his wife said, adding her embrace, ‘...and a Ruby, and an Emerald, and a Sapphire...’

 ‘I am rich indeed,’ came the answer. ‘Let’s have another song!’

The Song goes on, Namo murmured, and then the earth fell away, the stars surrounded them in songs of splendour, and Thorn saw in the distance the white shores of a far green country.