Chapter 16. A Knife in the Dark

'There's plenty of grass here for a pony,' Robin Bolger said, studying the grassy sides of the bowl-shaped dell. 'That could be one reason why they chose to stop here.'

Ever since his uncle had spoken so strongly about why the New Company had not taken a pony with them, Faramir had avoided the subject, and he did so now, saying only, 'I think it also had to do with the firewood they found, indicating that Rangers had been there, as well as the spring nearby.'

'Rangers had been there, or so Strider thought from the few footprints he found unspoilt, and seeing the "neatly stacked" firewood gave my dad the impression that whoever had put it there intended to come back,' Pippin-lad Gamgee confirmed from his familiarity with the account in the Red Book. 'But the greatest benefit, or so Strider said, was that they'd be out of sight for the moment.' He surveyed the bowl and then pointed. 'There,' he said. 'I'd say that is the lowest and most sheltered corner. Let us build our fire where Mr Frodo wrote that they lit theirs.'

The travellers found the firewood lately left by the Rangers – but this time in accordance with Haldoron's explicit request for such aid in advance – and carried armloads to the designated place. But as the son of the Thain laid his armful of wood down, Faramir said, 'But we have neglected to explore the dell, as they did! We don't even know where the spring is as of yet!' 

'That was supposed to be your task, as I recall – yours and Pip-lad's, wasn't it?' Robin said dryly. 'Whilst the rest of the party climbed to the hilltop and "exposed ourselves" to the Enemies pursuing the Ring-bearer?'

Faramir's mouth twisted, but he did not deign to answer.

And so, before laying and sparking a fire – without which their meal preparations would not go very far at all, or so logic insisted – it seemed necessary (for the sake of "authenticity") to locate the spring, which was not far away in the hillside, according to the Red Book. At least, Ferdi thought to himself, the lad is not insisting that some of us climb to the top again whilst he and Pippin-lad go through the motions of exploring the dell! In truth, he was more than heartily sick of authenticity and the unreasonable demands it was imposing on this present venture.

But there seemed no way of discarding authenticity by the wayside, at least not at this juncture, no matter how cumbersome or, perhaps, endangering young Faramir's insistence might turn out to be. 

At least in this case, authenticity meant that the spring was, indeed, not very far from the sheltered spot where they'd eventually – and sooner rather than later, as more than one of the travellers were privately hoping – lay down their packs, spread their blankets, and kindle fire. Which, of course, was almost certain to lead to the pleasant prospect of eating a hot meal, however sparing the portions might turn out to be.

Looking at the soft ground surrounding the spring, Ferdi said, 'No footprints! Not even your Rangers were here when they brought and stacked the wood, it seems.'

'Let me oblige you,' Haldoron said, and walked across the space several times, leaving criss-crossing trails of boot prints. 'There,' he said at last. 'Will that suffice?'

'Admirably,' Ferdi said. 'Not "many booted feet", but many prints of (albeit the same) booted feet, which is as close as I'd care to come to those Black Riderish fellows in any event.'

To Faramir, he said, 'Would you care to trample the soft ground and spoil the tracks as your father did?'

'Uncle Ferdi!' Faramir groaned. But Ferdi and Haldoron exchanged a wry smile.

'Well,' Robin said briskly. 'Our frugal supper won't cook itself! I say we should light the fire!'

By the time they'd prepared their meal, the shades of evening were beginning to fall, though the summer night was mild and not particularly chilly. As they sat down to eat, they remembered earlier conversations about the previous travellers, how Aragorn had estimated at least another fortnight's journey, and how Frodo had worried about their dwindling supplies, even though they'd been careful.

'And this supper has used up the last of the food we carried with us!' Robin said. 'Even with the pony, I'm not sure how they managed...'

'They went hungry more often than not, or so the Thain told me,' Ferdi answered. 'And I doubt his memories merely reflect the recollections of an ever-hungered tween who, as is the way with tweens in general, might be likely to consider himself on the brink of starvation after having stuffed himself full at a feast! ...for my young cousin also spoke of the older cousins sneaking some of their portions onto his plate when one or the other of them thought nobody else in the Company was paying heed,' he added. 'Needs must...'

On that happy thought, they fell silent and finished their meal. It was Robin's and Pippin-lad's turn to clean up and pack away the cook pot and dishes, but Faramir jumped up to help, leaving Ferdi and Haldoron quietly smoking their pipes as the sky faded to paleness and then stars began to appear, one by one, ultimately filling the darkening sky with myriad points of light. As it turned out, because the cook pot was still half-full of tea, they left the pot and mugs for later. Even cooling tea could be something of a comfort so far from the remembered amenities of civilisation they'd left behind them. As their elders enjoyed the relative silence, the younger hobbits finished the bulk of washing up and then lay upon their backs on the grass and stared at the sky, quietly pointing to various bodies and constellations and naming them.

'Can you tell us the tale of Tinúviel?' Pippin-lad said suddenly. 'Strider told that tale to them that night...'

'Master Merry said he'd asked to hear more about Gil-galad, but Aragorn did not want to talk about Mordor, knowing what they were up against,' Robin said in a subdued tone.

'And my kinsman would have had the right of it,' Haldoron asserted. 'When one is in fear that the servants of the Enemy are creeping all about, it would seem sheer foolishness to risk summoning them by telling stories about their dark Master...' 

'That's just what Strider said!' Pip-lad agreed.

'Tinúviel, on the other hand,' Haldoron said, drawing thoughtfully on his pipe. 'I can see where telling that tale would bring my kinsman comfort and hope...' He paused for a long moment to consider, and said, 'I am not quite so skilled as he when it comes to rendering Elven songs in the Common Speech, but I will do my poor best.'

Haldoron's poor best was enough to keep his listeners transfixed as he chanted stanza after stanza of the song, ending with the two lovers passing away, singing sorrowless as they walked beneath the surrounding trees with the stars shining above them.

A general sigh was heard, and then Faramir asked, 'But why that particular tale?'

'I beg your pardon, young master?' Haldoron said.

'You said that tale was one to bring Aragorn comfort and hope as he waited there, knowing the net was drawing ever tighter around them, facing five Black Riders alone...'

'He wasn't alone!' Pippin-lad protested.

'For all practical purposes,' Faramir countered. 'For none of the hobbits understood even dimly what they were facing at that time, but he knew all too clearly...'

'He did,' Haldoron said. 'But in that tale... you see, he could see himself and Arwen Evenstar in the meeting of Beren and Lúthien. For it was many years before that night when he serenaded his companions on the slopes of Weathertop, that he was walking alone in the woods near Rivendell, singing of Lúthien Tinúviel, full of hope and seeing the world as a fair place after learning his true name and lineage, and there he saw Elrond's daughter for the first time, walking in the twilight, and thought her a vision...'

He fell silent, and the young hobbits could get nothing more from him for several minutes.

At last, taking pity on the Man, Ferdi sought to distract them. 'Look!' he said, pointing upward to the pale light crowning the hill above them. 'The Moon is rising over Weathertop.'

'They saw something "small and dark" against the brightening sky above them,' Pip-lad said. 'I wonder if it was one of the Black Riders looking down at them.'

'That gives me a shiver,' Faramir protested.

'Though my dad and Master Merry got up and walked away from the fire, they soon came running back, and Master Merry said he'd also seen shapes coming towards them... and they all felt the fear creeping closer...'

'They sat with their backs to the fire,' Faramir said, 'as Strider told them to do. And each held a long stick at the ready – though at the ready for what, they did not know.'

Ferdi nodded approvingly. 'Facing the fire would spoil their night-vision,' he said. Half amused and half sober, he watched the younger hobbits each pull a long stick from the wood-fire and then sit down again facing away from the flames.

'There!' Pippin-lad hissed, and Ferdi couldn't help looking in the direction the teen was pointing his stick, towards the lip of the little dell, on the side away from the hill. 'That's where they saw the shadows rising...'

Ferdi let out a pent-up breath, feeling rather foolish, but his nerves were suddenly and unaccountably taut, his muscles tight with tension.

'As the shadows, darker than the blackness behind them, began to advance, Pippin and Merry dropped their sticks and threw themselves flat, overcome by the waves of terror that washed over them,' Pippin-lad recited, as if he knew this passage from the Red Book by heart. And perhaps he did, for he went on, saying "Sam" rather than "my dad" as he described the happenings there in the bowl where they now sat in the darkness, 'Sam shrank closer to Frodo, who was quaking as if with bitter cold; but then Mister Frodo forgot everything but the thought of putting the Ring on his finger, even though he knew he should not do so! And when he did, five cold, glittering figures suddenly became terribly clear to his eyes...'

Though the mild night air was far from cold, Ferdi shuddered.

But Pippin-lad went on, the words tumbling faster as he continued, 'Keen and merciless eyes burned in their white faces, and he could see long grey robes under their mantles and silver helms upon their grey hairs and gleaming swords in their haggard hands. They rushed towards him, but all he could see in that moment was their piercing eyes, seeming to freeze his heart and mind. But Frodo did not freeze! Instead, he drew his sword in desperate defiance – I remember he thought it resembled a firebrand flickering in his hand. But the tall, dread king, a crown on his helm, was undaunted. The fell figure sprang forward, a long sword in one hand and in the other a knife that glowed with a pale light as he bore down on Frodo.'

Ferdi could see the scene all too clearly in his mind's eye; it seemed as if he could not draw breath, no matter how hard he tried. Through the ringing in his ears, he dimly heard Pippin-lad still speaking.

'...and Frodo threw himself forward on the ground and struck at the feet of his enemy, crying aloud – though he knew not where the words came from – O Elbereth! Gilthoniel! All of them heard a shrill cry ring out in the night, and Sam looked for his master and could not find him. 'Mister Frodo! Mister Frodo!' he cried, even as Strider leapt out of the darkness with a flaming brand of wood in either hand. And then the Shadows rushed past them and vanished!'

But Faramir was no longer listening to the story; instead, he had hold of Ferdi's shoulder and was shaking his uncle and pleading. 'Uncle Ferdi! Uncle!'

'What is it?' Haldoron was there almost as instantly as a Black Rider drawn to the Ring-bearer, or so it seemed.

'I don't know!' Faramir sounded frantic. Ferdi wanted to reassure him, but the world seemed to be fading around him.

'Ease him down,' Haldoron said. He had no idea what kind of fit had taken the Hobbit; he would not have put Ferdi down as one who was subject to imagined fears, but Ferdi's face, ghostly pale in the firelight, along with his darkened lips that the Man suspected would be blue or even purple under the light of the Sun, had him seriously worried. 

'What is it?' Robin echoed, but Haldoron only shook his head. 'Why can't he breathe?' Ferdi's Bolger nephew demanded, having seized Ferdi from the other side.

'Get back!' Haldoron ordered the younger hobbits crowding close. 'Give him air!' Perhaps it was a seizure of the heart? But the hobbit seemed too young for heart trouble, especially if he'd never shown evidence of such a problem previously. If he had, surely the Thain (and the King) would never have sent him on this journey!

He bent over the stricken hobbit and loosened Ferdi's collar, for all the good it might do. But then, as he laid his hand on the stricken Hobbit's forehead, his face changed.

'The Black Breath,' he muttered. 'How...?'

Robin Bolger gasped. 'O no!' he cried. 'I thought...'

'What did you think?' Haldoron rapped out.

'When the Black Riders were searching the Shire for "Baggins", they waylaid two Tookish hunters and questioned them,' Robin said.

'I remember...' Farry began, but Robin ran over him.

'Uncle Ferdi was one of them, and Tolibold was the other, and they almost died!' he said.

And then Haldoron remembered Halmir, another Ranger, not a close kinsman, more of an acquaintance, telling of how he and one of the sons of Elrond had found two Hobbits near death atop one of the high Green Hills, and how Elladan had drawn them back from the brink of death. Halmir had not known of their ultimate fate, but he'd had hopes...

...and it seemed his kinsman's hopes had been granted, for here was one of those hobbits! Ferdi had survived and, up to this point, had seemed to have fully recovered from that earlier encounter. Haldoron had not had even an inkling of the Took's previous experience with the Black Breath.

At the moment, however, the hobbit's survival seemed far from a sure thing. The storytelling, the circumstances, the setting... had triggered some lingering shadow. Elessar had told Haldoron of Meriadoc's "anniversaries", and so the idea was not beyond the Ranger-guide's imagining now.

And yet... Haldoron knew all too well that his healing skills fell far short of those possessed by a son of Elrond, nor was his power even close to that of Elessar. But there was nothing for it; he must exert himself to his utmost. The alternative might be to stand helplessly by, watching the Hobbit overcome by his lingering memory of Shadow before their eyes and dying of the despair he would be unable to resist. 'Quickly!' the Man rapped out. 'Dump out the tea you brewed and fill the cookpot with fresh water! We need steaming water!'

The Man didn't know if tea would interfere with the effectiveness of athelas, but he wasn't willing to take the chance, not even if a quicker response could offset his lack of healing skill and gifting.

His orders had the benefit of scattering the hovering hobbits. As he closed his eyes and strove to reach Ferdi's essence, he heard one of the youngsters calling to another, 'Don't fill it full! It'll come to a boil faster that way!' The teens had good heads on their shoulders, he thought, and then he blotted out his surroundings and his companions with the intensity of his effort.

Some time later, though he didn't know how long it had taken the half-full pot to boil, Haldoron jerked at a touch on his arm. 'We have the water here,' he heard Robin say.

The Man lifted his head and opened his eyes. The young hobbits had built up the fire, casting extra brightness on the scene. 'Good,' he said. 'Set the pot down – there,' he indicated the spot, 'and lift your uncle into a sitting position.'

As Robin and Faramir hurried to obey, and Pip-lad looked on with wide eyes and face blanched with shock and consternation, Haldoron drew out the pouch that hung around his neck – not the one that held his pipe, but another. 'Athelas,' he said, removing two of the leaves he'd plucked fresh and saved only the day before. 'We must hope it's enough without the Healing Hands or a son of Elrond to apply it.'

Asserting the greatest degree of intention he was capable of summoning, Haldoron closed his eyes and breathed upon the leaves. Then he crumpled them and cast them into the steaming pot. Please, his thought pleaded within him. Had I known, I would have prevented the young hobbit from telling the tale. Please, let him not suffer from my error. His intention was enough, it seemed, for a refreshing fragrance arose into the still night air around them.

Haldoron shielded his hands with thick-folded cloth that a shaking Pip-lad handed him – a shirt, he thought, or perhaps folded trousers from someone's pack – and picked up the pot, then held it before Ferdi's face. He was heartened to see the hobbit gasp, taking in some of the fragrant steam. 'Breathe, my friend,' he urged, almost unaware that he spoke.

After what seemed an eternity, he heard one of the hobbits whisper, 'He's breathing!'

'That's it,' the Man encouraged, closing his eyes once more to add as much power to the intent behind his voice and words as he might have the will and bodily strength to yield up, despite the danger to himself should he persist beyond his own strength. 'Take in the steam, feel the power of the athelas spreading through you... the Shadow has no power in the here and now!' he added. 'What troubles you is only the memory of Shadow! Remember the Light that is in you! Walk not in darkness, but seek the Light!'

As the night deepened around them, the younger hobbits fed the flames of their wood-fire. Haldoron held the pot close to Ferdi's face until it was no longer steaming, then ordered the others – someone, anyhow, he knew not who took the pot from him in truth, blinded as the Man was at this point as the result of expending his energies so recklessly – to dump out the cooling dregs and fill the pot once more. Before they – whoever – put the freshly scooped-up water on the fire, Haldoron stayed them long enough to dip a cloth in the icy water from the spring and wiped Ferdi's face. At least the hobbit's lips had lost their blue colour, Haldoron could see as through a heavy fog surrounding him, and Ferdi seemed to be breathing, shallow but steady breaths. Nonetheless, with all his remaining strength, heart and will and sinew and intent, Haldoron repeated his earlier effort, adding fresh leaves to the water, just off the boil, and making sure Ferdi breathed the steam so long as it lasted. 

The steam had the added benefit of soothing and calming the frantic youngsters, as well; and perhaps by its virtue, Haldoron's muscles held him upright even when darkness nibbled around the edges of his vision and he thought he must, inevitably, collapse upon the ground and never move again.

By the time the Sun threw her promise into the sky, portending the early summer dawning, Haldoron deemed that Ferdi was sleeping naturally, and he wearily laid the now-cold pot aside and somehow raised his chin high enough to look around the circle of anxious faces, though his head was pounding and felt as heavy as if it were filled with lead. 'It was enough,' he said, barely hearing his own voice in his ears. 'Thanks be.'

They – all of the young Hobbits, the Man thought, though his dimming eyes could not see them clearly – echoed that last thought, and then young Faramir crumpled together, weeping. Pip-lad and Robin enclosed him between them and murmured what comfort they could until the teen had wept himself to exhaustion, and then the three lay themselves down together – wilted might be a more accurate term – on the grass and gave themselves up to sleep.

Haldoron covered them with one of the blankets and sat down again at Ferdi's side. They'd already wrapped Ferdi in a blanket during the battle for the Hobbit's life and mind. Almost absently, feeling limp and spent from the effort he had applied, the Man pulled his cloak a little closer around his shoulders in the early-dawn chill and settled himself to keep watch over his charges.

*** 

Author's notes: 

Some turns of phrase in this chapter were drawn from 'A Knife in the Dark' and 'Appendix A: Annals of the Kings and Rulers' in The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien.

The idea that Ferdibrand and Tolibold Took were overcome by one of the Black Riders who were searching the Shire for Frodo is found in The Farmer's Son, a WIP on SoA that is on the schedule to be published in full in the coming months. In that story, Halmir, a Northern Ranger, and Elladan found the two friends and cousins near death and laid out for burial in a cruel act of mockery on their assailant's part; however, the rescuers were able to counter the effects of the Black Breath and revive them, and they continued to watch over them until their searching friends and relations found them and took them home to recover from their ordeal.

***