Chapter 17

As one, the Company surged forward towards the crevasse into which Frodo had disappeared.  “Stop!” shouted Gandalf, his rough voice halting them as if they had run into a wall.  With desperate strength, Sam wrenched Bill’s head down and pulled the pony to a standstill.  “Stop,” the wizard repeated more gently, his deep eyes on the great crack.  Small slides of snow and earth were still falling into it, stones clicking as they struck the frozen walls.  “Will you follow him down?  Stand where you are.”  Gandalf took two steps to the right but the ice creaked under his weight and a running crack appeared under his feet.  Hurriedly, Gandalf extended his staff and leaned part of his weight on it.  Slowly, slowly he moved back to the left, keeping his feet low to the ice to catch himself should it break.

For a moment, nothing was heard except the faint cold whistle of the wind and the Fellowship’s panting breaths.  Aragorn and Gandalf were staring at each other; all other eyes were drawn down into the chasm. 

“Frodo,” Aragorn called softly, but in the silence his voice carried.  “Frodo!  Can you hear me?”

Silence.  Then to the wonder and relief of all, a faint “Strider!  I hear you!”  Sam released an explosive breath he hadn’t realized he was holding.  Merry and Pippin both made a small cry.  Boromir shut his eyes in relief.

Aragorn tried to edge over the ice, but ominous creaking halted him two meters from the edge.  He leaned over but could not see far enough down into the gap.

“Strider?  Gandalf?  Help!”  Frodo’s voice was not loud but it was very strained and oddly muffled.

“Do not panic, Frodo!” the wizard called.  “We are coming for you.  We will get you out.  Just don’t move.”

“Oh, I will not move,”  floated up the disembodied voice.  Sam would have felt more comfortable if he hadn’t heard such a strange note in it.  Sam pulled hard on Bill’s lead line and practically dragged the pony to the safe ground on which the others stood.   He took a moment to reflect that the pony’s good horse sense had warned him of the thin ice, while the Company had walked blithely over it.  As if to agree, Bill shook his head violently, the white rim around his great soft eyes easing but not disappearing.  The ears did not come up from their flat position.

Carefully, Aragorn sank to his hands and knees then stretched his long frame full-length on the ice, seeking to distribute his weight.  With almost a swimming motion, he pulled himself along the few feet of frozen water until he was with a meter of the opening.  He pushed forward a little more … crack!

“Aragorn, stop!”  The Ranger had stilled before Gandalf could finish the words.  He lay motionless with his cheek pressed into the cold surface, his heart hammering.  “Go no further,” the wizard continued more softly.  “The ice will not support you.  Can you back up?”

Aragorn placed the flat of his hands against the ice and pushed.  “I can.  But how then can I help Frodo?”

“Pippin will take your place.”  Pippin’s curly head jerked up, his wide green-gold eyes on the wizard.  “He weighs the least of us.”  Merry moved as if to protest, then was silent.  Pippin sank to his knees and started crawling, passing the prone Ranger.  The tweenager’s face was almost as white as the ice but his small form was steady and his eyes intent.  Aragorn scooted backwards then regained his feet back on secure ground.

As the small figure neared the edge, the ice groaned but did not crack.  Pippin stiffened until the sound died away then pushed himself the last few inches and peered into the crevasse.  “I see him,” the youngest hobbit called.  “He is on a little ledge, perhaps five or six feet down.  He – oh…”

Gandalf pressed closer, then gave ground as the ice warned him.  “Oh?  Oh, what?”

Pippin did not reply for a moment, looking distractedly at the sheer sides of the crevasse.  "It is a very small ledge, Gandalf, maybe four inches wide.  Frodo must have slid down pressed to the wall.  If he had come down six inches in either direction…”  Pippin pulled himself a little further along the ice, so that his entire head was tilted down.  The ice groaned again.

“Peregrin Took, you get back!”

“I will not, Frodo, and I’ll thank you to be quiet.”

“Pippin!  You back up this instant!  Do you hear me, young hobbit?”

“Be quiet, Frodo.”  Pippin was studying the crevasse intently, eyes roaming around the sides, looking for footholds or handholds.  “Gandalf, he is pressed against the side, standing on a little ledge smaller than his feet.  His face is pushed up against the wall.  He can’t move an inch.”

“Gandalf!  Aragorn, make him get away from the edge!”

“Frodo,” the wizard called, “Pippin is right.  Be quiet and let us get you out.”  There was no response to this, except for some soft mutters that it was probably better Gandalf didn’t hear.

“And how are we to do that?” asked Legolas.  “We have no rope.  We could tie our blankets together…”

“He couldn’t reach them.”  Pippin raised his head and looked back at them.  “The little ledge is set against the ice at a slight incline.  There’s water running fast below him; I can’t see it but I can hear it.  He would have to turn around and leap for it … and if he missed…”

“Frodo,” Gandalf called over Pippin’s head, “can you turn around?”

Pressed tightly against the wall, Frodo responded, “I will try.”

He had just shifted his weight when Pippin shrieked, “Don’t move!  Don’t move!”

“What is it?” shouted Gandalf and Aragorn together. 

Pippin looked at them frantically.  “The ledge is crumbling.  If he moves, it will collapse.”

“Frodo, don’t move!” Gandalf cried.  Frodo pressed himself against the wall, trembling.

“Crampons.”  All eyes turned to the Dwarf, who was already digging in his pack.  “The ones we took from the orc-band.”  For a moment, Gimli’s dark eyes sought the Elf’s, but Legolas’ face betrayed nothing of what he had suffered at those vile creatures’ hands.  Long iron spikes spilled from Gimli’s pack and he swiftly gathered them up.  “Frodo can use them as steps.  We need a hammer…  One of my throwing axes will do.”

Boromir stooped and picked up one of the heavy black spikes, turning it over in his hands.  “I have used these before.  How will we get them hammered into the walls?”

Gimli’s hands stopped in straightening the crampons.  The Company stared at each other, aghast.

“Form a chain.”  Merry had been so quiet, so intent on Pippin and Frodo, that the larger members had almost forgotten him.  “Give the crampons to Pip and I’ll hold his ankles.  Sam can hold mine.  Then … Legolas and Aragorn and Boromir, with Gimli as anchor.  Gandalf can watch the ice for us.”

Abruptly, Aragorn threw back his head and laughed, shaking the hair out of his eyes.  “Thank you, Master Brandybuck!  Pippin, did you hear?”

“I heard.”  Pippin raised his face from exchanging soft words with his cousin and looked back at them.  “We had better hurry.  Frodo’s fingers are going numb and it’s hard for him to hold onto the wall.”

Gimli had been rolling the spikes in a blanket and now knelt, eyeing the distance to the small hobbit.  With a careful shove, the powerful Dwarf sent the bundle sliding towards Pippin, who caught it deftly.  The hobbit arranged the spikes against his chest and caught the small axe that followed.  Then he shut his eyes and did not open them until he felt warm hands pat his leg then grasp his ankles in a strong grip.  Merry looked back over his shoulder as Sam followed suit.  The ice creaked.

Legolas dropped to his belly and slid forward, somehow still managing to look graceful.  Boromir, behind him, did not.  Aragorn fastened his hands tightly around the man’s ankles and Gimli attached himself last, sitting upright, far enough away from the thin area that he could dig his heavy boots deeply into the thick ice.  Gandalf stood over them all, beard bristling, issuing orders and suggestions and entreaties to take care.   

“Ready?” Gandalf asked.  Various growled, muttered and murmured affirmations replied.  Gimli began to inch himself forward, one thick leg braced against the ice at all times.  The muscles of his great arms strained against the heavy cloth and leather and mail of his armor.  The chain began to slide forward, lowering Pippin headfirst into the chasm.  Below him, Frodo closed his eyes and pressed his cheek more firmly into the wall of ice as loose earth rained down upon him. 

Pippin closed his own eyes as he went over the edge but found the nothingness too reminiscent of his recent snow-blindness.  He hastily opened his eyes and arched his back, angling his head to see how far down he was. 

“Pip, stop squirming!” Merry panted.  He grunted as another heave left him dangling, Pippin’s full weight wrenching his shoulders.  He didn’t want to think what Sam must be feeling with both his and Pip’s weight on him.

“I’m not squirming.  I’m looking!” Pippin hissed back.  “Frodo, can you raise your arms?”

Slowly, pressing tight against the wall, Frodo raised his right arm above his head.  Pippin was approaching him in jerks and starts, the crampons clutched tightly in one arm and the axe in the other.  Both he and Merry were completely over the edge; above them with this elbows dug into the ice, Sam was silent, his round face a rictus of pain as sweat coated him.  Legolas, holding the sturdy hobbit’s ankles, marveled at the halfling’s endurance.

With another jerk, Pippin descended further.  Frodo opened his eyes, startled to see his cousin’s upside-down head swinging inches from his face.  Frodo caught one of the crampons from him and thrust it into the wall, knee-high, where it quivered, not securely anchored in the ice.  With a stifled grunt, Pippin twisted and drove the blunt top of the axe against the spike.  Again.  And again. 

“Can you pull yourself up on that?” Pippin whispered.  He felt like a nosebleed was going to start at any moment.  

Carefully, Frodo raised his right leg and managed to place a foot on the crampon.  He sighed in relief; his muscles had begun to cramp from standing clenched in the same position.  “Yes.  Hurry, Pip.”  Merry made a strangled moan of agreement.

At Pippin’s call, Gandalf directed the chain to edge back.  Now truly did the Company witness the legendary strength of the Dwarves.  Gimli braced himself with both legs and bodily pulled the column back, the men and the elf wiggling to aid him.  The ice creaked again as Merry was pulled up over the edge, his body bending at the waist.  Sam made a soft, agonized sound as some of the weight was released from his shoulders.

Another crampon was hammered in, further up.  Frodo heaved himself onto it, catching the upper spike in his hand and balancing one-footed on the lower.  Both hobbits were trembling from weariness and tension now, and Frodo needed Pippin’s weight to brace him against the ice.  Another jerk back.  Merry slid back onto the ice with a groan, scraping his forearms.  Sam’s iron grip on his ankles was agony.  Now he could not see what was happening below him.  More hammering, then Pip’s cry for another retreat.   

Jerk.  Pippin’s lower half appeared and Merry pulled him back onto the ice flow.  Now only the tweenager’s upper body hung over the chasm.  Pip’s feet kicked slightly as he twisted to drive in another crampon and Merry redoubled his hold, resulting in an “Oi!  That hurts, Merry!”

Frodo was perhaps two feet from gaining the surface when the crampon on which he balanced loosened and fell away into the void.  At his cry, Pippin dropped the remaining spikes and Gimli’s axe and fastened both small hands around his cousin’s flailing wrist.  The jerk of Frodo’s weight hitting the chain dragged Gimli forward several feet.  But the chain did not break.  Frodo and Pippin both hung over the chasm, blue eyes locked on gold-green, as they struggled to hold.

Pippin whimpered.  Moving stiffly, Frodo reached up with his left hand and caught the braces of his cousin’s breeches, freeing Pippin of some of his weight.  Pippin could feel that he did not have a good hold; that left arm was weak yet.  “Hold on, Cousin,” he whispered in a strangled gasp.  “Hold on.” 

Frodo had no breath to reply. Then slowly, he started to rise as the chain regrouped and Gimli pulled.  Pippin came back over the edge, his death-grip on Frodo’s wrist never faltering.  The continuous, slow rising continued.  Frodo’s sweat-soaked hair appeared, then his white face, his upper body.  Then with a final effort from Gimli, the Ringbearer was pulled up over the edge and back to safe ground.

With a snap, the ice gave.  Where Merry and Pippin and Frodo had lain not a moment before, it shattered and knife-edged shards dropped to join the rushing waters below.

Those comprising the chain rolled on the ground and sought to unclamp their hands, their limbs stiff and unyielding from cold and tension.  Gimli rolled his shoulders, unable yet to close his hands.  Boromir and Aragorn sat up, shaking their hands and wrists, trying to work some feeling into them.  Legolas crouched near to them, working his hands.  Sam thrashed silently from side to side, tears of pain and relief streaming down his face.  Merry lay before him, utterly limp as tremors racked his body.  Pippin and Frodo lay so still that Gandalf came to them and turned them over, kneeling to feel their pulses and peer into their eyes.

“Oooowww” moaned Pippin softly.  Frodo said nothing but he glanced up at Gandalf then slid his arm around his younger cousin, holding him close.

Gandalf rose to his feet, leaning heavily against his staff.  “That is quite enough excitement for one day, I think.  We will get off this cursed glacier and find a place to camp.  All of you will need liniment and rest.  A warm fire, tea and hot stew -”

A slow, rumbling snarl drew every head up.  On the other side of the crevasse, with all his pack behind him, stood a magnificent timber wolf.   The beast was huge, thickly muscled, easily one hundred, fifty pounds.  The wolf was completely black, the only color on it its yellow eyes and a slight silvering of the black ruff.  The sound died as the yellow eyes stared at them.  The others behind it were gray and brown and black and two were white.  They were very many.

* TBC *