Chapter 28. The Search

 ‘Well Ferdi-my-lad, we’ve our work cut out for us,’ Verilard muttered when the Thain had finished speaking to the assembled hunters. ‘I imagine all those neighbours have spoilt the ground with their searching.’ The lad did not meet the old hunter’s eyes, but the latter could tell Ferdi was listening by the slight tilt of his head. ‘Come then, lad, we’ll get faster to the start of search mounted, I think.’

He rose and stalked from the great room, trusting the teen to follow. Ferumbras had given them the most direct line between Whittacres and the Great Smials. The hunters would ride to Paladin’s farm and then fan out, seeking to pick up the trail of a small boy and sheepdog. It seemed an impossible undertaking. Other searchers would be combing the countryside, blowing horns and calling for dog and lad.

 ‘Paladin has had the hobbits of Whitwell searching since yesterday. Frodo Baggins has searchers working between Bywater and Tookland, and the Boffinses have organised the search near Waymoot,’ Ferumbras had told the hunters. ‘I’ll have Tooks looking from Tuckborough to Tookbank. Your job is to pick up any trail you can. If you cannot find a trail, join the hunt.’

Ferdibrand waited in the courtyard while Veri went into the stables with the other hunters and searchers to fetch ponies. He never went into the stables if he could avoid it. Swinging onto their ponies, the Tooks left the Great Smials in the wake of their Thain and his escort at a ground-eating trot. The grassy heather-covered hills, dotted with copses of woods, rose ever greater as they rode westwards; the country grew wilder, more suitable for sheep than farming. A track ran along the side of one hill, into the valley, crossed a rocky, singing stream and climbed another hill, up and down, winding its way through the highlands and lowlands.

They ate their noontides in the saddle, pushing the ponies to their best pace, for Ferumbras wished to reach Whittacres by mid-afternoon at the latest, when there would be a few hours of light left in the sky.

Just east of Tookbank the greatest of the Green Hills loomed above the village. ‘Here’s where we start to search,’ Veri said, reining his pony off the path on the outskirts of Tookbank, to let the others pass them. A large group had set out from the courtyard of the Great Smials, hobbits dropping off periodically to begin the search. More would begin searching between Tookbank and Whitwell, but the Thain had assigned Veri the area east of Tookbank as a likely place for the lad to be found had he headed due east.

‘If I were a lad on my way to Tuckborough, or beyond,’ Veri said now, with a searching look at Ferdibrand, ‘I’d follow the road from my farm to Tookbank. No one would remark a lad and a dog traipsing along of a morning, especially if the lad had a sack o’er his shoulders. Visiting his grandparents more likely than not, or running an errand whilst his da’s out in the fields.’

Ferdi nodded.

They followed the track out of Tookbank, no more than a farmer’s lane; wide enough for a loaded waggon between the village and the first few farms, it would narrow as it wound its way into the hills.

 ‘How long would he keep to the track, I wonder?’ Veri said. ‘If he strayed he might become lost... Would he turn aside, seeing a spring coming out of the hillside, for a drink?’ He pointed to a trickle of water on the hillside above them.

The hunter slid from his pony, tossing the reins to his young companion, scouting the ground. Ferdi waited on the path. Soon Veri returned. ‘Not this spring, at any event,’ he said. They walked slowly along leading the ponies, each scrutinising his side of the path with sharp eyes. ‘Twill be a wonder to find any sign at all,’ Veri grumbled to himself. He looked up, hearing an echo in the hills, the lad’s name, borne faintly on the breeze. ‘Ah, well, we might track him yet, only to discover he’s been found safe by the others.’

Safe? Ferdi wondered, looking at the wild hills.

 ‘We can always hope,’ Veri said, reading the look.

Verilard left the track at every spring he saw trickling from the hills on either side, but it was nearly sunset when he found the first sign, and even then he was not hopeful. ‘A small hobbit and a dog,’ he said. ‘Could be anyone’s boy.’ He squinted westward at the lowering sun. ‘Too late to follow far,’ he said. ‘We could wander and call, or eat a good meal and sleep and start fresh with the dawning.’ He looked to Ferdi. ‘Come,’ he said, ‘Let us climb to the top of this hill.’

They did so, seeing the valleys spreading on either side, hills surrounding. Tiny lights flared up near and far and they knew that searchers bearing torch or lantern walked and called, though hope diminished with every hour that passed.

Ferdi shivered and pulled his cloak tighter around his shoulders. Looking at the teen’s bleak expression, Veri said softly, ‘They say the lad took his cloak with him; there’s a mercy for you.’ He pulled his oilskin from the lacings that fastened it to the saddle and rolled it out upon the grass, laying his bedroll atop, nodding to Ferdi to do the same. The two sat down upon their blankets and munched sausage rolls and dried fruit, drinking icy water from the bottles they’d filled at the last spring, watching the torches of the searchers on the hillsides around them.

Next morning they were up early, wakening as the Sun threw her promise into the sky but before she peeked over her coverlet to greet the day. They looked about themselves in wonder: fog shrouded the valleys, and the hilltops were islands in a misty sea. Veri was out of his bedroll before the slightest creak in his bones might awaken to plague him, and before Ferdi had stretched and sat up Veri’s blankets were rolled in the oilskin and fastened to the saddle again.

The hobbled ponies had not wandered far, and before long all were ready to travel again. Veri handed Ferdi several dried-apple tarts, saving a few for himself; they munched as they walked down into the mist. Stopping once more by the spring they filled their bottles and Veri scrutinised the tracks he’d found the previous day, then began to follow, ‘For want of anything better to do,’ as he grumbled to Ferdi.

They walked slowly as the Sun arose, shaking off the clinging mist. When they’d been walking perhaps an hour, they heard the first calls of the searchers, resuming the hope-dimming task. Several times Veri lost the trail and had to cast about, fretting about wasted time, but he found it again with patient searching, once finding a clear print in the mud on the far side of a sparkling stream. ‘Good thing it hasn’t rained,’ was all he said.

The Sun was high in her dance across the sky when Ferdi suddenly pulled at Veri’s sleeve. The hunter had his nose nearly to the ground, but at the tug he stopped with a patient, ‘What is it, lad?’

Ferdi’s face had lost all colour; he pointed. Veri followed the line, shading his eyes with his hand, and muttered an oath. Carrion birds circled not far from a copse of trees, in the direction that the trail was leading. The hunter straightened, nodded reassuringly. ‘Probably not our lad at all. A sheep, most likely, strayed and broke a leg or somewhat.’ The teen was not reassured, but set his jaw and indicated he was ready to continue.