Chapter 2

At last the wizard sighed and dragged himself to his feet, leaning heavily on his staff.  Frodo opened his eyes and looked up at him, pain and exhaustion so clearly mirrored in his bandaged face that the wizard reached down and laid a gentle hand on his shoulder.  “I’m sorry, Frodo, but we must move on.  On your feet, my friend.”  After a moment, Frodo nodded and rose unsteadily on shaky feet.  Once on them, he swayed and Merry rushed to his side and placed a shoulder under his cousin’s arm.  Frodo smiled at him gratefully and hugged him in thanks, gasping as the action tugged at the wounds across his back.

That was the signal for the rest of the Fellowship to pry themselves off the floor.  Tears gathered in Pippin’s eyes as his every movement pulled at his bites.  He brushed them away quickly before the others saw.  Groans and stifled curses punctuated the echoing silences of the caverns of Moria.  “Be still!” Gandalf hissed, “All of you, be silent!”

When Frodo reached for his pack, Boromir caught it up.  “You are too hurt to carry it, Frodo.  I will bear it until your back is better.”

“Thank you,” Frodo whispered.  Looking at his cousin’s pale face, Merry thought that soon one of the Men would have to carry him, too.

After applying the salve to his own wounds, Legolas had stood in the center of their rough circle, eyes closed, turning his head as he sought out the faintest sounds of pursuit or attack.  Of all of them, the elf had suffered least in the attack; his quickness had allowed him to evade many of the attacks the rest had endured.  In answer to Aragorn’s look of inquiry, he said, “I hear nothing.  Even their squeaks have faded.  It is odd … I should be able to pick up some of their shrieking cries.  It is almost as if they were ordered to be silent –"  Seeing the Ranger’s grimace, the Elf fell suddenly silent.

“Gimli,” the wizard called softly, “come forward with me, if you would.”  The dwarf gave a final swipe to his axe, cleaning off blood and fur and bits of wings and paced to Gandalf’s side.  The two began a soft conversation, with much pointing ahead of them, as the others arrayed themselves after and followed.  The four hobbits kept close together, as they ever did when stressed, with Pippin leading Merry and Frodo, and Sam directly behind.  As Frodo stumbled on, Sam could see his cloak darkening in places as blood oozed through the bandages.  A slight clearing of his throat brought Merry’s attention to him, and Sam made a face and gestured at the seeping wounds.  Merry nodded over Frodo’s bent head and shifted his grip across his cousin’s shoulders, rolling his arm briefly to show Sam the blood patterned across it.

Enough was enough.  Sam let the other three draw slightly ahead of him then threw himself prone on the cold stone floor, emitted a loud “Whumf!” as he fell.  For good measure, he added a pitiable groan as the Company turned to locate the source of the sound.  The groan was partially genuine; he had misjudged the hardness of the stone and managed to bruise his elbows most painfully. 

Gandalf halted the Company and Aragorn turned to hurry back to him.  Stretched out on the floor, Sam met Merry’s eyes and nodded at Frodo, who was only now coming out of his fog and becoming aware that his friend seemed to be hurt.  Frodo reached for him but Merry was speaking softly in his ear, urging him to let the Ranger attend Sam.  As the Ranger lifted him easily and set him on his feet, Sam cried out and curled one leg under him, almost falling again.  Aragorn caught him and eased him down to a seated position as Sam hugged his leg, trying to keep the Man from examining the non-existent injury.  Around him, the other members of the Company were sinking to the ground, gritting their teeth as muscles cramped and protested the movement.  Peering around Aragorn’s kneeling form, Sam could see Mr. Merry easing his master down on his side and covering him with a blanket, then going immediately to Gandalf and tugging on the wizard’s robes.  Heads at a level, they spoke a moment then Gandalf followed Merry back to his Mr. Frodo.

“Sam, you must let me see your leg.  Is it the ankle or the leg itself?  I do not see any blood.”  The more Aragorn tried to uncurl Sam’s fingers from around his leg, the tighter Sam clutched.  But his strength was no match for the Ranger’s and all too soon, Aragorn’s strong hands were kneading the flesh of his leg.  Finding nothing wrong, Aragorn looked up from the leg and raised puzzled eyes to Sam’s.

“I had ‘ta, sir,” Sam whispered in his softest voice.  “He wouldn’t stop and he wouldn’t let us tell you he was hurting and –“

“Ah,” Aragorn returned softly.  “So this is all a ruse to spare your master’s pride?”

“Yes, sir.  I’m sorry, sir, but I had ‘ta –“

Though the wizard could not possibly have heard the soft whispers, Gandalf’s quiet voice floated over to them from where he bent over Frodo.  “Aragorn, as Sam seems to be unhurt, would you help me over here?”

Aragorn rose, resting his hand on Sam’s shoulder for a moment.  “You are forgiven, Sam.  If  Frodo were less stubborn…”  the Ranger grimaced at the uselessness of that thought and went to assist Gandalf. 

Merry plopped himself down by Sam’s side.  “Oh, well played, Sam.”  Sam rubbed his elbows.  Merry sighed and arched his back, then reached out an arm to gather Pippin to him as the youngster half-crawled over to them.   The bite over Pip’s eye was turning red and inflamed, and Merry rubbed some of the generously-applied salve dripping into his ear on the wound.  Pippin cuddled against him, his wide, still-frightened eyes on what he could see of his cousin between the Big Folk.

Looking over at them, Gandalf said, “Sam, would you …  no.  No.  Legolas, would you and Gimli gather wood and start a fire?  Only a small one, mind.  Let the hobbits rest.”  The wizard was gently unwinding Frodo’s bandages as he spoke and Sam would have bristled at the thought that the wizard thought him too tired to work, if he’d any bristle left.  Pippin hid his face in Merry’s chest and sagged against him, asleep almost instantly.

Merry leaned forward as Gandalf and Aragorn worked on Frodo, their hands as gentle as possible.  Cradled in his arms, Pippin made a soft, sleeping cry and clenched his hand in Merry’s cloak.  “Hush, Pippin-lad,” Merry reassured him.  “Hush, my dear.”  Straining his ears, he still could not hear the Big Folk’s quiet discussion.  “Sam, will you take him?  I want to find out what is happening.”

Sam nodded and held out his arms.  Merry gently transferred the sleeping youngster into them, smiling as Pip muttered an inarticulate protest then snuggled into Sam’s warmth.  Sam pulled the edges of his cloak over the small form, and began to rock him very gently.  He caught Merry’s arm as he rose.  “You’ll tell me what they’re sayin’?”

“I will, Sam.”

Ignoring his own soreness, Merry sank down by Aragorn, across from Gandalf.  All conversation stopped as he joined them, kindling an instant terror in his heart.  Looking at his frightened face, Gandalf hastened to say, “It’s all right, Merry.  He is sleeping.  So is Pippin, I see.  Good...  We will rest here a little while.”      

Merry nodded gratefully, reached down to stroke Frodo’s exhausted face.  His cousin had sheltered his face as much as he could, but still Frodo’s face and throat were marked by sharp, slicing teeth.  Like Pippin’s bites and his own, the wounds were becoming inflamed and increasingly tender.

“I’ve been thinking,” Merry began, and ignored Aragorn when the Ranger emitted a soft groan.  “Do you think those bats might have been spies?  Eyes for a distant master?  Like Saruman’s crebain.”  Gandalf’s gaze sharpened on him but the wizard was silent.  “If that is the case, then we can expect some kind of assault against us, as soon as the creatures’ master learns of us and can organize his forces.”

Boromir joined them, his soldier’s instincts alerted by Merry’s quiet words.  He had been helping Gimli move aside shattered masonry to gather wood and restock the torches they carried.  The fire was going well now, and the Elf and the Dwarf crouched over it, measuring tea into a kettle.  They spoke together softly, though Legolas’ head turned constantly as he focused that precise elven hearing in one direction after another.

“A thought also occurs to me,” Boromir almost whispered into the silence that followed Merry’s statement.  “A distant general may not be the only one his scouts alert, do those scouts raise enough havoc in their passing.    Any outlying patrol would know of an invasion by those scouts’ very actions.”

Abruptly the wizard laughed, a short unhappy sound.  “Would anyone else care to impart good news?  Surely there is yet one more thing that could go wrong.”

By the fire, Legolas and Gimli exchanged a glance.  Then the Elf rose gracefully to his feet and drifted over to them.  “I had not intended to say anything,” he said softly.  “But Gimli counsels that I do.”  The Elf sighed.  “Since before the attack of those evil things, I have been aware of a soft pattering behind us … sometimes to the side, now and again before us.  Only one, I think.  I have not heard it for some time, not since we emerged back into the main colonnade.  But the footfalls are from unshod, flapping feet.”

“Have you seen anything?”  This from Aragorn, as his dark eyes searched beyond the dim illumination of their fire.

“Nothing.  I hear, only.”

Now Gimli included himself, leaving only Sam and Pippin apart from the meeting around the sleeping Ring-bearer.  Merry glanced over his shoulder at them, checking that they were all right.  Sam was still rocking Pippin gently as the youngster curled in his lap, but his round face was set and strained as he struggled to make out their words.   Merry nodded at him and Sam relaxed somewhat, though he obviously wanted to know what passed among them.

“I have seen something,” the Dwarf rumbled.  For a moment, Merry envied him his heavy mail coat and thick leather surcoat, the helmet and the luxurious beard that protected his face.  Most of the bites and scratches he bore were on his face and hands, but those were very many.  “Eyes.  Eyes that glow faintly in the reflection of a torch or fire.”  Son of a people who had lived underground for millennia, the Dwarf’s dark vision was probably the best among them, and none of them thought to question his identification.

“Gollum?” asked the wizard.

The Dwarf spread his thickly-muscled hands.  “I do not know.  I have not seen more than two luminescent eyes, shining at us from behind some broken remnant of Khazad-dûm.   Whatever it is, it hides itself well.  But I have seen no sign of it since yesterday.”

Gandalf sighed and despite himself, a slight smile tugged at his bearded lips.  “That should lesson me not to ask for further trouble.  It always comes when asked, it seems.”

* TBC *