Chapter 7. Safe for the moment, I rest and ponder

~ S.R. 1419, 15 January, pre-dawn ~ 
(From the Tale of Years for this date: The Bridge of Khazad-dûm, and fall of Gandalf. The Company reaches Nimrodel late at night.) 

I lift my head, and it seems, however unlikely in the circumstances, that I must have dozed. For all traces of twilight are gone, and darkness has settled upon the land. My muscles quiver with weakness, and my breaths still whistle quickly in and out of my lungs in testimony to my recent and violent exertions.

They're well gone, my companion – for that other is still here, unless he might be part of my slowly dissolving dreams – tells me as I flare my nostrils to sample the night air. 

I thank you for your timely rescue, I say politely. My dam always insisted that politeness was the best course to follow, and for the most part, she had the right of the matter. With the exception of my old misery, of course. And the monsters in that dreadful murky lake where the steep dark stairway swallowed my Companions. Offering them a polite greeting did not seem the right thing to do, especially considering the Voices' reaction to their sudden appearance. 

And wolves, I should say. Wolves belong on the list.

We will rest now, I hear this new acquaintance say. No time for niceties, I suppose. At least until you catch your breath. And are you bleeding badly? I hear the words as clearly as before and know I am not alone. If I stretch my neck a little, my nose might brush against a furry hide. However, now that the darkness has fallen, this other beast is no longer a piece of moving twilight but has become invisible to my eyes – not even the shadow of a shadow is discernible! I know there is substance only from the reassuring horsey smell that comes to my nostrils and the quiet sounds that reach my ears when I swivel them in that direction.

I shudder the skin over my shoulder where a wolf's teeth scored me near the end of the battle. It is not too bad, I say. I think my Companions would call it a flesh wound.

My new Companion does not ask after those others, but merely says, Good. Then we'll rest here until you have caught your breath. If you're not losing blood too rapidly, we can wait that long before we go and find water to drink.

I'm thirsty, I say, almost without thinking.

After you catch your breath, we will find water, comes the answer. You are weary, and I think you will risk less of a stumble – perhaps laming yourself, which would not be helpful at this point! – if you rest a little before we set out. At least long enough for your breath to quieten.

I am well, I say.

To speak the perfect truth, you were doing quite well for yourself in the time before I managed to reach you at last, the large not-shadow says. I really only stepped in when I arrived on the spot because I would not have wanted to miss out on the amusing diversion of watching them flee... 

Amusing. My fellow fighter finds wolves amusing. It is a curious thought. But then, I am only a pony, and he is much larger than I am.

My more-than- and less-than-shadow must be something more than merely a horse. Or something more than a common horse, in any event. If only I could see him clearly! (I say him with confidence, for I can tell from his smell that he is a stallion of some sort. But what sort?)

Still, a lone horse is no match for a pack of wolves, or so I gather from my memories of the stories my dam told of the Fell Winter, when the White Wolves came down from the Northlands. And running away from those fearsome creatures of story and legend was no guarantee of safety; in fact, she told me, from the stories passed down by surviving horses, she'd gathered that fighting was the best of a bad lot of choices, for the White Wolves could run swiftly over the snows and pull down any fleeing horse or deer.

Most of the ponies that survived were safely locked away behind sturdy doors in barns and stables, she told me.

And what of the horses? I remember asking her.

Those belonging to Bree-folk, they were safe behind the dike and the great hedge protecting the town, she answered. No traveller in his right mind would've ventured out in those freezing temperatures – cold enough to freeze the wide River to our West all the way across!

But what about those outside the dike and hedge? I persisted. 

For the first time, the thought occurs to me that my broken-down shed might actually have provided safety from the White Wolves, at that, seeing as how it was tucked inside the walls of the town and the enclosing hedge and dike. The structure seemed ancient enough to have stood in that long-ago time, anyhow.

My mother shuddered, and it was long before she would answer my question. At last, she said slowly, Some Rangers were lost with their horses if they were caught out in the open, where the snow was deeper.

At my wordless exclamation, she added, Some of them were able to outrun their pursuers and to reach safety, those who were near the town gates or the Chetwood, where the snows were not so deep under the trees, or one of their settlements...

Whose settlements? I asked her.

I remember how my dam nipped at my upturned nose. Master Curiosity! she said fondly.

Whose? I insisted.

The Ranger-folk, of course! my dam snorted. 

I didn't believe her at the time, and I can scarce believe her now, even as I think back in my memory to that long-ago conversation. For I cannot say if I have ever seen two Rangers together in the same place at one time. How can such solitary figures have settlements, I cannot seem to help asking?

She told me how, when the White Wolves first came upon them at one of these settlements, one large group of Rangers' horses were together out in the open, confined within a large field by a fence that presented no barrier to wolves. Indeed, the strongest of them might have jumped the fence and fled the wolves! ...but of course they could not leave the yearlings and two-year-olds behind, nor the older ones who lived a pleasant, quiet life in the field, for the most part, when they were not giving lessons in riding to young Rangers.

(Young Rangers, I stop to think about the phrase I remember her saying. At the time, the words made little sense to me, and I laid my ears back in irritation. And my mother nipped me sharply! Where do you think Rangers come from, my foolish foal? I did not know. And to this day, I still do not know. I am almost certain I have never seen two Rangers together! Would it not take two such creatures for "young Rangers" to come into the world?)

On further thought (but having little or nothing to do with Rangers), her description of the life of the Rangers' horses as I remember it reminds me strongly of the pleasant Valley where, I hope, Merrylegs still grazes.

So what did they do? I asked.

She shook her head at me but deigned to answer: They formed a ring, heels outermost, and herded the young and old into the centre. And any wolf that came near found that they were no easy prey, and that they would allow no access to the easier prey in the centre of the circle!

O my, I remember saying low. And did the wolves tire of their sport and go away, or did the horses tire, or were they able to stand steadfast...?

Their Men heard their shrieks and squeals, and the yelps of the wolves, and they came with their swords and spears and bows...

And that's how there were survivors, I suppose, I said thoughtfully. But how did you happen to hear the story? For I've never seen you talking to any horses over our fences, much less a Ranger's horse.

Astonishingly, my dam chuckled. You might well ask, she said, and I sighed. For all too often, that meant she had no intentions of giving me an answer. But this time, she did. Your great, great, great, many-greats of a granddam was in the centre of that circle with several other ponies belonging to the children of Rangers...

I was a very young and foolish foal when my dam told me that story, and the children of Rangers meant nothing to me since I had only seen one or two Rangers in my young life to that point, striding over the fields on their long legs and not stopping to talk or pat a pony's curious out-thrust nose. (I say one or two for I might have seen the same one twice upon a time, if you take my meaning.) And he – or they – walked alone.

But now, it occurs to me that the children of Rangers is another way of saying young Rangers. For, just as my dam said to me in my earliest days, Rangers must come from somewhere.

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