Book One: Star of the Mist
So it was that on a bright sunny day the 22nd of March in the year 2965 of the Third Age, the esteemed and, undoubtedly, infamous Hobbit adventurer, Bilbo Baggins, took to the Great East Road. He left promptly after sun up and thus far to preceding second breakfast for the liking of most hobbits, including one of his companions, young Halford Brandybuck. This eager hobbit, long enamored with the peculiar Baggins' queer stories of treasure and orcs and spiders the size of a Bree-folk’s donkey, stories that more often brought shiver of excitement than one of fear Took-blooded Hobbit, bounded alongside his patronizing mentor. In fact, Halford could barely contain his excitement.
He was, after all, going on his first adventure.
“Why Bree again, Mr. Baggins?” Halford asked.
Bilbo fished a pipe out of his pocket and began packing it
as they moved past the fenced-in carrot fields of Ernest Hillweather’s Hobbiton farm.
“Oh, the last thing I want is the Hobbits back in Michel Delving to get all worked up because I
invited tall folk back to my place.” He puffed a ring of blue-grey smoke
officiously. “Besides, you asked for a bit of adventure didn’t you, young
Brandybuck?”
Halford nodded at that. Bilbo continued; little puffs of
pipe smoke accentuating his sage statements. “Well then, don’t look a gift-pony
in the mouth, yes.” He harrumphed and picked up his own pace…so spry for a Hobbit past his 75th winter. “Besides, Bree is the gateway to the
greater world. And, the beer at the Prancing Pony matches any of the honeyed
mead we get in the Shire,” he said with a wink.
Following behind, a dwarf nearly as laden as the two ponies he led, snorted his derision, but only softly. Ida, son of Nor, knew ale. As
if hobbits and men knew the truth of good beer, he thought. But, he kept silent, and kept pace with the two ponies ambling along.
The other dwarves in the last caravan had made quite the fuss about Bilbo. A good man they'd shouted. Clever and sharp as a knife, they had said. From the Dwarven travelers ale-loosened tongues spilled tales of Balin, son of Fundin, and Thorin Oakenshield and others and, of course, Bilbo. These tales culminated with increasingly exaggerated recounting of the end of Smaug and return of the dwarves' ancestral wealth...but in each version, Bilbo shined through. A hero. Ida, son of Nor, thought of his own family and the ever dark of the mines, and he too felt an urge to recover that what the dwarves, what is ancestors, had lost. So when the dwarves had been asked
for a guard to escort the hobbit, Ida jumped at the opportunity.
And, so it was, as the sun rose in the east, then settled at their western backs the trio made their way down the spring-thawing road. They accumulated the muck and mud of hardtravel as they kicked melting snow from their path, but their spirits flew and thus their burdens lessened at the thought of the adventure ahead.
If only they were to know, a compatriot from the North, came with heavier shoulders and ill tidings. His mind’s eye still seeing the horse-sized wolf breathing its last as he and his compatriots slayed the beasts what slayed the passing family of wilderland farmers. As he marched, silently, sternly through the northern hills, he didn’t hear the songbirds and rustling wheels of passing wagons that greeted the trio set out from the Shire, Elador the Ranger heard only silence and in that grim solitude he could imagine only Shadow.
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| The Prancing Pony Inn, of Bree, welcomes travelers. |
Selected Excerpts from "Chapter 2: The Road to the Tower" & "Chapter 3: Shadows Trailing Sarn Ford" from Bilbo Baggin's brief book The Star of the Mist
It wasn’t stamina or ambition or vigor that pushed young Halford to the front of the scrabbly Greenway, it was sheer enthusiasm. The open road!, sang the Brandybuck hobbit’s heart, and his furred feet followed suit leading him in nearly hopping strides to outpace his stronger companions by several yards even has his tired pony, Jessup, slightly pulled back against his exuberant steps.
And, perhaps, more than early spring sun shone upon Halford, for his keen eyes at the fore proved good fate, as well. With a sharp tug on Jessup’s harness, Halford pulled the beast to a standstill, then gently, and with kind hushed words, led the old pony up to a grassy embankment and around the trail. Even in a hopeful daze, Halford’s gaze had caught trouble. The Greenway, old and scarcely used as it was, was uneven in the best of places, but along the path here shale and sharp stone poked through the brown mud, shale sharp and uneven enough to bother even sturdy horseshoes.
Halford waited and guided his compatriots around the troubled pathway, and, as Ida passed, the gruff dwarf, nodded a stern thank you and said “Good eyes, lad. Good eyes.” Halford could barely contain his beaming smile as the dwarf passed by.
I’m not just on an adventure, I’m contributing to one! he thought brightly.
Halford cursed himself a fool and felt his fingers numb with fear. He had bounded ahead of the group again. Spring was warming. Honeyrod blooms were in the air. The southern pass of the Greenway wasn’t much different than the edges of the Shire it had seemed. Certainly more wild. Larger. And, now, he thought as his breath hitched in his throat, more dangerous.
The rustling and snorting from the brush alongside the path was loud enough to cause even stalwart Jessup to flatten his ears against head and tug back against Halford. Torn between running and shouting, however, the Brandybuck on his first adventure ever found a surprising middle-ground. A sudden courage, hot like the smoke from a fine pipe, rumbled up through from his stomach and warmed his fingers and feet into movement. Alas, not to run, but to act. Without blinking, the hobbit slowly stole the bow off his shoulder and placed it in his hands. Not a moment too soon; the rustling in the brush turned into shaking, the snorting breathing became snarls, and bursting free of the cattails and brush came forward a bundle of black-brown fur and claws hurtling towards Halford. He loosed an arrow that skittered not an inch in front of what he believed then to be a bear, for what other furred beast could be so large, so ravenous? And while his aim was off, his intent was true, for the beast clambered back into the wilds from which it came.
Even later, when Ida had scoffed and told the hobbit “’twas a badger not a bear by the sounds of it!” the chiding hadn’t lessened the heat of the accomplishment, pride, nor the rising sense of courage the Brandybuck hobbit had felt.
Shadows at Sarn Ford (not numbered on the map)
“Quiet!” hissed Elador. His ice blue eyes reflected the flickering flame of the campfire and they held firm and unblinking on his ranger companion, Drach. “You need not humor him, Master Finrod. He forgets himself.”
Finrod’s head turned slightly at this. The sage-warrior hadn’t meant to agree with the anxious ranger named Drach. Finrod had mostly hoped to appease him; those well-traveled amongst the Elves had told him that Men responded well to agreement when pressed.
Finrod had, of course, read of Men. He knew well the tales and songs of the Dunedain. He knew details regarding the severing of once mighty Arnor into the lesser kingdoms of Arthedain, Cardolan, and Rudaur. He knew of their kings and wars and their lines of succession. He understood as a subject their passionate beliefs swept upon the lands like wildfire since, in their short years, they must burn bright. But now, in person, he found it difficult to judge what to say, when to interject, how to approach this tension between the two companions.
Any tactic for interjection the elf might conjure scarcely mattered, however. Drach, did not keep his silence long.
“Come now, brother. we suffer for them!” The shaved-headed ranger hitched a thumb back towards the sleeping hobbit. “I’ve seen men take an orc arrow for them. Mine own sister lay in great pain for many months because she broke her leg shooing wild wolves from the western edge of the Bree-lands!” His voice was growing louder. His gesticulations wilder and wilder. His swinging arms cast long, frantic shadows across the campfire. These shadows that fell onto Finrod’s eyes.
For his part, Elador only kept his gaze stern and fixed on the disgruntled ranger. His gaze was stone and cold.
Drach’s voice met that gaze like a challenge. “You know it to be true, Elador!”
He pivoted to look at the elf. His eyes seemed wild and large, brimming with both a threat and pleading for agreement. “You too elf! Your people take care of themselves, all too well. But you must see it. The softness that our protection breeds into these sheep.”
“Enough!” Elador thundered. He stood fast to his feet. “I’ll hear no more of your fearmongering, Drach. It becomes you not nor does it our station, our lot, our duty as Rangers of these lands.”
Elador’s grimace dropped and he nodded at Finrod. “Apologies kind Finrod.” He Elvish was fluent. “His tongue wags but shows no decorum.” And with that, the ranger known as Elador spun from the campfire and disappeared into the night.
Finrod stared after him watching his form melt into the background. He sensed Drach close to him. Finrod smelled the fear mingling with the stale sweat of the road and paths that had gathered on the ranger. And, as the Drach again cursed the free folk of Eriador for their gluttony and softness, Finrod felt a pang of sadness and dark confusion pass through his heart…if those Men sworn to protect these lands could scarcely find common ground over a simple night’s fire, if they couldn’t honor those they swore to protect, if fear turned words to hate on the end of their tongue, had they not already fallen then to the gathering darkness?
Elador stoked the fire causing the wood to sizzle and pop. Smoke billowed generously up. The spring melt and earlier rains had left very little ideal burning kindle, but the ranger had stalked these wilds long enough to make do. In a matter of moments, the fire caught firm and held.
Elador heard Ida grumble contentedly, and watched the dwarf carefully unbuckle his armor and begin attending to its maintenance. A few yards off in the, outside the circle of light provided by his campfire, Elador heard the soft harmony of voices. Finrod was teaching Halford an Elvish travel tune. They’d been having a go at it since leaving Sarn Ford behind.
The smoke from the campfire continued its upward wind, seeming to dance to the haunting rhythm of Finrod’s song. Elador hummed softly along and let his eyes trace the elevating smoke until his gaze fell upon the pristine night sky. A thousand thousand stars stared back brighter than a dwarf-kings polished gold coins. As the hobbit and elf fell into harmony again, Elador let himself continue to stare. He felt at peace; it was a kind moment that stretched out like the many miles he had walked in his lifetime. He thought how lovely and joyous it would be if this peaceful moment might stretch on even further than that, what if it could be a lifetime. The stars twinkled above almost suggesting that maybe, maybe one day that might be possible.
Elador closed his eyes and smiled. He reopened them and stared into the fire and sighed. Today was not that day, however. Before the two were done singing, before the dwarf settled into sleep, there was still much to be done. And, the days ahead would be difficult. He knew this in a way that one knows something as if they had read it. But, the impending gloom wasn’t written on the pages of paper, it was inked deep inside him, a knowledge he felt with every ache of his travel-worn bones. Still, for now, he could at least smile.
The ranger rose from the fire and made his way a few yards back near the ponies. He had set up day’s catch here: a brace of fat rabbits. As he neared, he could sense the skittering nerves of the ponies and heard a rustle in the brush about the tree to which they were tied. Pulling a dagger and crouching low, Elador strafed in long silent steps forward. He caught sight of it at the same time it saw him, a scrawny coyote no doubt ready to nab a strung-up rabbit and run. Elador laughed and the nervous dog ran off. He laughed even louder as he cut free the skinned rabbits to return to the fire and cook. How foolish he’d have felt had he got lost in the rare poetry of one peaceful night and surrendered their dinner to a waifish would-be wolf.
He laughed again before calling out to his friends that tonight they’d eat like kings.
4. Skirmish at Journey's End
Ida had worked up more of a sweat lugging his great axe up and down these foothill paths than he did in sweeping aside the brigand who now threatened him. Even had the scar-lipped ruffian been trained enough to parry his blow, Ida, son of Nar, knew the weight of his axe would have carried right on through. It would have resulted in the same sad end. A bandit overeager and of ill-intent lying dead atop a desolate rocky hilltop ‘ere the mighty Ered Luin, the Blue Mountains.
Ida gave a curt nod to his companions. With blade and bow, they too had made short work of the ill-trained Men who thought to fight them off the trail of their bandit hideout. Seeing the success of the company, Ida strode boldly to the precipice of the stony hill and looked down the footpaths as they snaked through crevices and jutting stone to a clearing where more rough men gathered and looked up.
“If you want a taste of what befell your allies, then keep your weapons!” the thickly-armored dwarf bellowed has he hefted his axe the size himself double again. His voice echoed like falling stone through the twisty rock walls of the mountainous terrain and the dying embers of day glinted off his well-oiled armor like an aura of furious fire.
Within seconds, the ruffians replied. Their poorly kept and pitted swords and arrows knocking against the stone as they threw down their gear in surrender.
Ida turned back to the companions and gave another nod. Then, with no fanfare, the powerful dwarf began the march from hill to cave as his company stepped in behind him.
Excerpts from Chapter Four: Haunted House Hadirion
The chasm at their back gathered the rushing winds and seemed to howl. Spring air chilled in between the mountainous peaks, all if it pushing the company towards the door before them.
But how fell that door seemed! Canted at a strange angle as if it were slowly falling to its side. The archway of grey stone chiseled and set into the stone was littered with competing runes…the language of dwarf and men mingled in cracking, weathered, and fading manner.
Most unseemly was the darkness between the arch…the darkness in the mountain proper. It felt peculiar and cold, and as the company gazed into its flat, black depths it too seemed to cant to an angle, twisting, beckoning...but only in the most foreboding, dangerous manner. The darkness promised only threat and danger, and the company hobbit, dwarf, elf, and man a like felt a surge of wariness dance along the back of their necks. More than bandits were here…something was truly amiss.
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The bell tolled from the dark depths and it was ominous. Halford could feel the skin rise along his arm; he hadn’t been this terrified since the first time he’d heard Bilbo tell tale of the trolls besetting his dwarven compatriots.
But those stories paled in comparison to the reverberating fear that quivered through him now. Nearly making him sick. Nearly causing him to want to turn and scamper back towards the broken bridge and whatever evil men and bandits lay beyond.
But, his company stood fast. And so did he. And in that staying, he saw them rise out of the fetid water. Skulls first…bubbling up to the black stagnant pool’s surface…spheres of white ascending. As they rose the horror became more and more apparent. Tatters of old skin, gray and shriveled, hung to their pale skeletal remains, rusted spears and daggers gripped in their pearlescent knuckles…a perverse moaning thrum that was worse than the shrill bell that beckoned them here.
One by one, over a half-dozen of the skeletal men rose from the murky waters that had flooded the chamber, and with halting steps they moved forward in predatory single-mindedness…weapons raised and the flame of evil intent flickering in the empty sockets of their eyes.
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If the chambers below had clearly shown a deeply respectful shared work of man and dwarf, a harmony of a once-great joining of the two cultures, then the top was a ruinous monument to the works of great man. Stone pillars and towers leaned and crumbled in every direction. Houses lay collapsed. Cracked marble fountains and statues lay pierced by flagstones jutting like spears from the ground up. And the sky itself matched the ill-tenor. Hazy and gray, a smog of despair and decay, an aura of hopelessness had settled on the fallen House of Hadirion and grew cancerous in its many centuries of stagnation.
The sole exception to gray-scape was the Tower of the Star, standing firm amongst an island of broken stonework, a cluster of ruins rising where once was a majestic palace. The tower rose like a gnarled stone hand, its stunted fingers thrusting into the ever-gray dusk sky, curled and crooked. And there resting, pulsing almost, is a luminescent blue glow the color of a deep river or an autumnal moon.
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She appeared as a crooked hag, wrapped in tatters hiding her spectral features. Her flesh transparent, and her alit like embers. Thin strands of white hair escaped her ragged hood. Her voice, the hiss of a thousand thousand serpents singing in a strange accent creaked out, “Why have you come? There’s nothing here, only death. Leave this place, or join me in my torment!”
In one ghostly hand, a long pitted sword appeared; in the other, a spear with a blood-stained tip. She hurtled towards the company with the weapons of her former defense now outstretched and waving ethereally. As she glided forward, streaking like a mad raven, her mouth opened…then opened somehow even some more, distending to reveal a blackened inside that was deeper than the darkest night.
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