Chapter I
“I just stood there…and then…I heared them.
They were near and I did not know what to do so I hid behind a dead trees root.
Silent I was…and loud they were walking, pushing up the leaves from the bottom and breaking through the perches that were in front of them without any qualm.
They were running, and fast they were.
My whole body was shivering, Vin, shivering, neither I was able to even do one step, nor I was able to give the alarm…I was just, just…frozen.”
He was not crying, but in his eyes there was the arch rise of fear and an endless stream of the cold which had touched his body no long ago.
A haze of exertion was torn over his skin and it pushed everyone back, who wanted to be near to him…except Vin.
“It’s alright”
Some sedative warm voice whispered like honey and thick warm smoke of a well smelling pipe near Rorys ear.
“It’s over now, you must not fear.”
A strong and sensitive back of a hand softly stoke his forehead.
Rorys left hand, which until this moment had been pressing the rheumy down-filled headrest cushion against his chest, slowly unstressed. It was a patient method, which Vin used to calm him down, but also an effective one.
Rorys eyes still stared onto the wall behind his counterpart when he remembered what had happened to him some hours before.
When the morning fog had tickled coyly the fields of the Shire and the trees had still been yawning from the crystal-like night he had been out in the forests, to find a quiet place, to think of how to go on.
After all those years which had passed, after all the friends that were gone, the Hillwoods were not a place of light-heartedness anymore. They became a cruel place to him and an unloved one.
Indeed there still was the nature, the birds singing every morning to wake up all around, the grass and the golden fields, the clear nights and the summer breezes, but for him it was different.
The songs of the birds became melodies of his nightmares and the grass was not as green for him as it had been the years before. The fields were lost labyrinths which cached the last breath of the summer breezes and, with the rustling ears, turned it into the clattering swords and shields, which you could hear from afar.
“Rory, won’t you listen?”
The soft voice of his releasing had started again and the tickling of a dark blonde wisp of hair on his cheek pushed him back to reality.
Rory closed his eyes for a short moment and opened them again.
“You must not fear…it is over.”
It came gentle through Vin’s lips, but demanding and low was his voice.
“Hush, this is my only fear…that in stormy nights on seas, so blustery that my heart can’t stand, it’s thunderous and loud and scary and over” Rorys voice raised “I’m fearing that my only harbour is the end, when I am lost and falling and hiding and running and…”
“shhhhhh” Vin’s lips touched smooth Rorys cheek and soon they went away again.
He knew how to ease the fears and insanity of his treasure and dearest friend when it started.
“Bunters had never been that near before.” Rory whispered with a calmer, but even more fearful voice. “How were they able to break through the border? How could they just be able to break down the barrier?”
“This time there were many of them and they started to fight together, which is even more remarkable, because normally they won’t fight together in such a controlled unity. If it is true what is rumoured, He must have grown a lot…The soldiers from the barrier said that it must have been nearly 50 Bunters…”
“Oh my…50 of them…there were just three in the group this morning”
“Yes, the soldiers reported that they killed 40 of them, but that the rest broke through the barrier and also…there were twelve soldiers killed while the attack.” Vins voice had changed while the last sentence had come through his lips.
“When I hid there behind that root I heard them talking…the Bunters…they smelled me and they searched for me and…” Rory started to shiver again “…when they found my hideout…they tracked me and ran after me…dear I thought my life was over in the next seconds and they were just amused. When the one of them packed me I knew this was my end…why Vin…why am I still alive…why me and not the soldiers, which so bravely fought for us? Why must they suffer?”
Sobbing and shaking Rory pushed his forehead against the warm chest of the Hobbit which sat next to him.
Lavender smelling came from the outside through the open window and the white sheets of the oak wooden bed on which the two of them sat on flew lightly and sank down again, swayed by the soft wind.
It was the wind which was so treacherous singing from distant battlefields. It brought advices of bloodshed afar and plenty of the downfall coming closer with every minute. The world had changed and it faded.
The loom of the midday sun was playing on the white, limewashed walls and seesawing and dancing.
Rorys fists strained again. His soaked hair, which had got clammy by some tears that after all had ran hushing from his cheeks, fell into his mild face and pasted on the rosy skin.
Vin lightly put his arms around him and caressed his inhibited shoulders.
He kissed Rorys forehead and then touched his chin to push up the head of his friend.
Rorys eyes were like a mirror. Vin saw anything in them, anything he trusted in. With his darker blue eyes Vin lay them to rest.
His glance was able to cover Rorys fears in a safe case, far away from the very moment.
The hobbit with the light brown hair looked into Vin’s eyes.
“Thank you” Rory whispered. He closed his eyes and touched Vins chest with his head again. These moments were what gave him strength and held him until he was able to walk on his own again.
Chapter II ~ The West
25th of 10th month after escape
The lullaby, which the honourable sister sang for us when we were too agitated to sleep, still burns in my head. It is strange that after our escape a lullaby reminds me of these times and not the still hurting brand on my left shoulder.
I do travel in the midday sun, when the scouts of Rack Raggal hide in the shades of the forests, when the eyes of these faggots can not find me, because they are blended by the soon fading light.
They fear the sunlight and this is my chance to flee.
The Shadow billows further and what he reaches is reachable for his servants, so I have to travel fast.
I try to remain undiscovered, but have no place I want to reach. My only aim is to leave him behind…the omnipresent Shadow, but where I go he follows me.
He is fed with the hate and fear of thousands and this everlasting rupture carries on, because hate and fear are common mates these days.
The sun goes down on the battlefield
And bood will run until the thirst is healed
The prayer’s dishonoured, the deathman’s shield
seems weak against the creatures meat
The cries unheared and the wounds unseen
The Shadows eyes still watching the scene
He’s waiting for all these souls unclean
Being as close as he’s ever been
The arrows crash and the bows stretch fast
The killing goes on and ever lasts
There is no day in the clouds above
There is no sun and there is no love
When dithering fills the air with cold
When warriors loose every hope
There is a force calling sweet and mild
Follow me and be crucified
So close your eyes and give him your heart
Dream of his rise and also take part
Be his eyes, his head, his soul
This is how he, The Shadow rolls
Chapter III
The attacks came frequently now. First there were attacks just every second day, but then it started that every day there was leastwise one attack.
“We have to go!"
Vin spoke out what had been in Rory’s mind for months.
There was no hope in this tricky silence and no honesty. The nice the presence was, the hypocritical was its reality and every day of rest and inactivity made the dark weather front come closer.
It were not just the Bunters, which brought desolation to the Shire and the surrounding countries.
It was also an untouchable shadow which grew every day.
Dark clouds gave horrible masks to the sky and played chess with the bottom on a fatal fancy dress party up there.
The shadow-line went on every day and it seemed like an invincible army, pushing forward, unable to stand still.
The Shadow grabbed the hills with his coveting hands and changed the water of the clean brooks and small lakes into dark pasty-looking liquid.
But the shadow was more than this.
It also was the constant feeling of distrust which grew in the hearts of the people and detained them of trusting anyone around them or feeling free any time.
It made them lonely and suicidal and it brought quarrel to the previously loved.
The shadow ruined the harvest. It nested in every corner of the warm houses, brought the cold, nightmares, delusion and exhaustion.
And with the shadow came the Bunters.
The more the shadow grew, the stronger they were.
They feared the light and the shadow was the perfect coverage. It gave them safety and it made them bloodthirsty like an abstruse aliment which fed them up. They were stronger and exceeded than normally and there were abnormally many of them.
Soon the barrier got leaky and the soldiers were not enough to defeat the border alone. Many of them died while the attacks and often the Bunters came close to the villages until they were found and killed. But the mysterious thing was, that no ordnance came from the protectors.
Rory sat near the house were the small brook flew slowly and viscous through the grassland.
He and Vin lived in a humble house which lay slightly outboard near the Forests of Brigglebow.
It was not very safe there, because there were no walls, but it was a quiet place and a hidden one.
Bunters mostly attacked the larger villages first, because there was more to pillage there and more to plunder.
Rorys gaze went over to a group of trees near the brook.
The birds had stopped singing in the last weeks and the silence in the air was tricky.
It was one month ago, when Rory had been attacked by a group of Bunters in the forests. Since then The Shadow had grown in an intense rapidity and it veiled everything with this misty dark haze.
Rory looked into the darkened water. It was this water which made the people ill, not because it really was baneful, but because they believed it was. But it was true, that it weakened them with every drop they drunk.
He observed the surface of the water for some minutes.
There went a hissing through the leaves of the trees next to him, a warningly one and then the wind totally stopped.
Rorys eyes grew, when he saw the surface of the barely quiet stream jittering. And then he heard it.
Strange sound came from the rim-side.
It was the obscene and abhorrent noise of a Bunter-horde crashing through the brake on the other side of the brook, where the village concealed the glance on them. The warning bell rang drastically through the fields and Vin was able to feel the mass of Bunters coming closer. The bottom draggled under the stamping of the Bunterfeet which obviously razed every flower to the ground.
Vin must have acted fast. When he had felt the draggling bottom, he had noticed that the Bunters must be too many and that the soldiers must have not been able to challenge them. He had pushed the door and had run to the brook, where he had packed Rorys shoulders to look him in the eye.
“We must run!” Rorys body was petrified with horror.
This was the scenario that had feared him the most in the last month. In every possible second he had thought of what to do in this very moment, but now, when it finally arrived, he was frozen and helpless.
Vin was, who brought him back down to earth. “We must run!” He repeated, this time more intense.
Rory took a deep breath, then he nodded and they started running.
Across the fields it was half a kilometre to the forest. They ran as fast as they could and hoped that none of the Bunters had seen them when they had started to escape. Rorys whole body shivered, even while running. His eyes focused Vin’s back and the imposing trees in front of them. Even if Rory normally loved the near forests they seemed deceitful now. The swaying branches seemed like enticing hands, strangling their victims while they were sleeping. The rustling of the leaves seemed like the spiteful laughter of a drunken company, able to hurt without scruple. When the two hobbits crossed the forests border the warning bell had stopped ringing.
Now Rory was able to hear the horrible screaming and crying from afar. When he turned around for some seconds he could even see the blazing flames and the thick grey smoke through the branches coming from Hellingen. “Don’t look back!” Vin’s hand touched Rorys and pulled him forward.
They had not been able to pack anything, so the only things they took with them were what they had worn when the attack had started.
The message of the attack obviously had been too late so they had been blindsided and not prepared.
Now they were running. Running into the deep forests, were the Bunters were not able to follow them that fast.
Not knowing were to go, they broke through the leafage, running faster and faster. The yet fallen leaves and sticks under their feet cracked traitorously. Rory nervously looked from side to side and backwards over his shoulder while Vin still held his hand, pulled him ahead and was permanently forward-facing.
The deeper they escaped into the forests, the more the trees grew.
And with the trees there grew the cold around them.
The forest turned darker and their feet slower. They were exhausted when they stopped.
Rory sank on his knees and his wet hair, moistened with sweat, fell into his hurting face.
His eyes were convulsively closed and his breath pressed down on his lungs.
Vin touched Rorys shoulder, sank down on his knees in front of him and based himself on a trees root with his other hand.
Around them it was dim. The air in this part of the forest was sticky. It smelled like mouldered old wood and the thick sweet dosh-carpet which extended over the whole forest soil and parts of the infirm trees.
The trees here were old and seemed as if they had outlasted for ages. An own biotope had grown under their sealed crowns. It seemed desolated and lost, lifeless and timeless.
The silence here was scary. It was an obtrusive silence and an illusive one, hiding the distress of forgotten times.
The two hobbits bed themselves between the roots of an impose old thee. It was cold and clammy, but they were too depleted to notice.
The air stood still while they were hugging, not because of the cold, but because of the fear to loose each other in this deathful time.
Rory pushed his head against Vin’s stronger shoulders.
A tear ran silent from his cheeks when he finally noticed, that he would never be able to return.
What had been his wish for a long time had come true, but now he was ashamed of his wishing. Once he had wished to leave this place which had stopped being his home long time ago.
Soon he closed his eyes and drifted off with his mind, until he fell asleep in Vin’s arms, which had held him all the time.
Chapter IV ~ The East
Phebulan’s golden eyes aimed clearly the creatures beneath him.
The black pupils grew slowly under the feeling of contempt.
His gleaming light-brown hair was thin, but it reached till his bony hips. There was no wind, but it still floated mysteriously and suspiciously touched the leaves all around him.
With a lithe motion he drew an arrow out of the quiver, which was strained over his well formed back.
He was very lank, but did not seem fragile.
On his right shoulder there was a scar. It remotely looked like a brand which must have been deeply burned into his flesh long time ago. It did not misshape him, but made him even more elegant and desirable.
Phebulan licked the wooden arrow on the arrowhead.
His tongue was pointy and with his grin he looked like a fox, waiting for his rabbit-trap to snap.
He applied the arrow to the streamlined bow, which he had held all the time.
The wood felt fair and glossy between his hands, when the firm sunlight fell through the leafage on his pure green skin.
The archer focused on his victims, stretched the bow and let the string snap.
A gust of wind went through the leaves as if they wanted to applaud him and his hair fluttered excitingly, while the death rattle of the sight disks beneath filled the air with shiver.
His eyes still focused on the marvellous death-play below and in his face there was neither a sign of nervousness, nor the feeling of guilt.
His long darker green-coloured tail, which lengthened his distinctive backbone vibrated under the excitement cause what he saw amused him.
He closed his eyes and grinned again, before he disappeared.
