White Wolf

See chapter one for summary and disclaimer. Also, note that chapter one has been edited since it was first written. If you're coming back for the second chapter, you might want to reread the first.

This part of the story is derived from The Fellowship of the Rings, Book Two, Chapter Three: "The Ring Goes South."

On the Path Through Hollin

All that night the Fellowship walked, hoping to distance themselves from the crebain and whatever else was watching them. Aragorn led the way through Hollin, finding the easiest paths for the weary hobbits. As they walked, with Legolas keeping watch at the back of the company, quieted conversations lilted through the air. Pippin complained to Gandalf that he was once again missing his long-awaited meal. Sam whispered to Frodo of his wishes for the journey to soon be over. Pippin and Merry mused longingly about the feasts they would have at the end of this quest. Gimli spoke of Dwarrowdelf in his low, growling voice, to whoever would listen. The only other sounds were the fatigued trod of the hobbits, the thumping stride of the dwarf, the quiet tread of Aragorn, Boromir, and Gandalf, and the harsh ring of Bill's hooves on the dirt and occasional stone. Legolas made no sound.

Several times Aragorn turned back to Legolas, to find what he had heard. The elf could not hear or see whatever was following them, but he still felt their presence, trailing at a great distance.

"I do not feel that they or their intent are evil," he told Aragorn at one time during the night, "yet I also do not know that they have our best interests in mind."

"Do you think that they are a threat to us?" the Ranger asked him.

Legolas sighed in mild frustration. "I do not know. It is possible."

Aragorn understood the elf's sentiments. He, too, wished to find out what was following them, but Gandalf continued to refuse them an opportunity to track and identify the creatures. True, the Company had not yet been approached or attacked, and Legolas's senses had not identified them as servants of evil, but in Aragorn and Legolas's minds, a threat still remained.

The mysterious creatures stayed with them the rest of that night, but during the day of hiding only crebain were seen. The Fellowship wondered anxiously about the disappearance of their followers at first, but the hobbits eventually relaxed at Gandalf's reassurances. The wizard speculated that whatever had been following them had decided that the group wasn't worth their time and departed, yet a sense of foreboding still troubled the minds of Aragorn and Legolas. The Walkers would bide their time, it seemed, to discover what was to become of this new menace.

*****

Mithril snarled silently in exasperation. The strange group had taken to travelling at night, when the wolves would have had an opportunity to steal food. During each day, while the people were occupied with concealing themselves from the strange birds that passed overhead, he and his pack went out to hunt, leaving one member to watch the group's movements, or lack thereof.

The first day of hunting was very uneventful. The hunting party circled through Hollin, noting each old foxhole and rabbit den, each spring that deer might frequent, each burrow that might house a ground squirrel or some other small animal. Mithril was baffled by the complete absence of life. But for the large crows that flew overhead, far out of reach, the pack and the strange group seemed to be the only living creatures in all of Eregion.

Hunger gnawed at the wolves as it had very few times before, only in seasons of famine. Mithril knew that this was not one of them, or shouldn't have been. The lack of game seemed much too strange and abrupt to be natural. The white wolf-changer strongly suspected the forces of evil as the cause of this phenomenon, but had little to go by other than his intuition. The intimation that laid heavily on his mind was an increased number of collisions with Wargs, the huge wolves of Sauron, east of the Misty Mountains, as well as new, mysterious howls coming from the lands near Isengard. No love was lost between Mithril's pack and Sauron's minions. Wild wolves had lost many of their number to the viscous ways of the Wargs, and had quickly learned to avoid any Warg pack. Several years before, the eldest member of Mithril's pack, Faroth, had been slain by four of Sauron's wolves. The pack now went out of its way to avoid large groups of the beasts, but could maim or kill a lone Warg, and did so whenever it got the chance. The more Wargs there were, the harder it was for Mithril's pack to hunt, and their range became more and more limited by the ever-increasing presence of the fell creatures.

Before the Necromancer had begun polluting the southern regions of Mirkwood, surrounding Dol Guldur, Mithril had led his pack freely through the great forest of the elves, being sure to avoid only troublesome spiders and Silvan hunting parties. The Misty Mountains and the lands to the west and south had also occasionally been hunting grounds, as no other pack had laid claim on the territory, and Mithril was also fond of frequenting the Long Lake and Erebor, the Lonely Mountain. Several times during periods where game was hard to find, the pack had strayed as far north as Ered Mithrin, the Grey Mountains, and as far south as the plains of Rohan. Few lands east of the rivers surrounding Eregion did Mithril scorn to travel, save for the southern lands of Mordor and Gondor. Mordor was inhabited by the evil Wargs and other such fell beings, and Gondor had been claimed by another strong pack. Gondor's pack had been through the reign of several alphas during the time of Mithril's leadership, since skin-shifters tended to have much longer life-spans than the common animals which they took shape as, yet Mithril couldn't help but feel some contempt for the other pack's constantly changing hierarchy. True, the members of his pack changed nearly as often, but his role as alpha male remained unchallenged, for his mind was like that of the Children of Ilúvatar.

And at the moment, Mithril's mind was on this strange group of travelers, and the prospect of food forthcoming from the odd company. He knew the pack's hunger was driving them to the edge of madness, and would do whatever had to be done to provide food for his starving wolves.

*****

Faroth: Hunter

A/N – Coming up next: the hunt continues…and pony is now on the menu!

Please review! Note that the number of reviews is directly related to the time it takes for the next chapter to be posted….Ok, not really, but the reviews are a great source of inspiration for me. So please take 30 seconds out of your day, and it will make my week. :)

~~Astarael~~