Chapter Six: Riders
Section One: Darkened Room


The shock of finding hair thriving on our feet still hadn't worn off when Aaron
insisted we go to bed. The room was pitch black, and I could barely see the
others around me. Me and Sam had one bed, Pat and Mike had the other. I could
see Aaron, a hazy shape, sitting in a chair beside the window, peering through
the blinds. It was then that I realized that we'd changed something else. The
room we'd been whisked off to was known, we had no other alibi. The Riders would
come, and skewer us on their swords like little sausages on toothpicks.
"Aaron," I sat up in bed, with the intention of telling him what was wrong with
all this. The glitter of his eyes trained on me immediately.
"Shh... I know what you're going to say. I'm hoping it doesn't matter as much
as we think," he whispered back to me with the offering of a dismissive gesture.
Then, the darkness around me seemed to be whispering and moving. I shut my eyes
tightly, and the darkness whispered there as well. I was doomed to moving
shadows and whispers in the night.

I woke up a little while later to a hiss like cold steel, and a soft touch on
my shoulder. When I opened my eyes, I saw that Aaron was standing beside the
door. Sam was sitting up beside me, as was Mike in the next bed. Pat had his
face buried in Mike's chest. The thing you have to understand about all of us,
is that we all like to think we're brave. We're not. If I hadn't been able to
grab Sam's hand in the darkness, I would have had a heart attack and died. If
any of us had faced such horrors that reached for us, without being able to
reach out for the comfort of another, we would have perished much earlier. True
bravery is being able to admit that, and grab your friend's hand while something
hisses on the other side of the door.
I was going to ask what was going on, but Aaron shook his head and pressed his
finger to his lips. A few moments later, I heard a snuffling sound, and heavy
footfalls. Four pairs, but only one made the sniffing noise. A shadow filled
under the door, and terror grew in my heart. There was a sound like metal
touching metal, and the doorknob jiggled. There was a collective catch in all
our breathing. Aaron reached over slowly, picking the little chain up, and
sliding the latch in the place. Not a moment too soon! The door jerked open
followed by a sound like a boiled lobster. Aaron looked at us with wide eyes,
making a gesture for us to get down. I dove off the bed immediately, wriggling
underneath. Sam followed me, worming in beside me. I could hear the rustle of
cloth from across the way and knew that Mike and Pat had followed suit.
I heard the door slam, and jerk open again to the length of the chain, followed
by a piercing screech similar to that of a horse's. Then there was a loud
crack. The door had split. The heavy footfalls followed, and soon I found myself
staring at an iron toed boot. I held my breath, feeling the slight weight of
Sam's arm across my back. The only way I held back the whimper that threatened
to come forth was by biting down on my lip.
The room seemed all too quiet, and too dark. Maybe my eyes were closed, I don't
know now. I was scared enough that I didn't even realize that I had bitten my
lip hard enough to bleed. Then the silence was interrupted by a horrible
creaking. The creaking of old tendons, or perhaps rotted armor. More horrifying
than that was when the tense silence afterwards was broken by a 'WHAM!' and the
sound of steel running against steel. Moments later it was repeated, much
closer. A blade sliced through the bed in front of my face, a mere hair away
from my nose. It slid down, the tip ramming into the ground before drawing back
again. The sound came from the other side, and I was sure Pat or Mike had been
run through as there was a soft sound afterwards. I thought I'd scream as the
blade flashed again, this time closer to Sam, slamming into the ground right
next to Sam's neck. I was sure that it'd only be seconds before we died.
"You want the Ring?!" Aaron's voice came sudden and loud, followed by a crash
and glass breaking, "Then you want me!"
Of course this was all a lie, the Ring was in my pocket. Wait, it was in my
hand. A cold little circle in my palm. I hadn't even realized that I'd taken it
from my pocket. Apparently the Rider's didn't realize Aaron's lie. The air was
filled with their screeching, and I clapped my hands over my ears. Sam pressed
his head against my shoulder, and put his hand over his other ear so he could
keep his arm across my back. The iron toed boot jerked away.
When the room was again quiet, I lifted the comforter's edge and peered out.
There was no sight of wraith, nor man. Deciding that the coast was clear, me and
Sam squirmed out from under the bed. The blinds had been torn from the wall, and
lay in a decrepit pile of plastic and metal on the ground. The window wasn't
open the way it should have been, but glass glittered on the ground. The pillows
on our bed were shredded, and there were holes in it. Two, little feathers
springing up from the tears in the comforter. The bed beside us was quiet, three
holes. Dread rose along with bile in the back of my throat, and I rushed over,
tearing the covers up and dropping to my knees to peer beneath the bed. Two
pairs of terrified eyes stared back at me.
"Mike? Pat?" I whispered, wondering if what I was seeing wasn't an illusion.
"Frodo..." Pat cried, and rushed out into my arms. Mike followed after him,
shaking. I wrapped my arms around Pat, holding him to my chest. Then I realized
that the warmth I felt against my neck wasn't just tears, but blood. I held him
away from me, seeing a thin line on his temple.
"You're cut."
"I know."
We stared at each other for a long moment, and I felt oddly proud of him. He
hadn't screamed in his fear, or pain. Again we hugged, Mike and Pat joining in.
Already this seemed more than enough fear for all of us. More than enough pain.
It seemed forever that we stayed like that, reluctant to let go of each other in
case one of us should suddenly befall something. I finally drew away because I
heard noise outside the window. Soon Aaron was staring in at us, cheeks flushed
from exertion.
"Come on, we need to run now," he hissed, gesturing for us to follow, "they'll
be back soon enough. They may be a couple hundred years dead, but they're not
completely mindless."

As Aaron led us away from town under the cover of darkness, we kept glancing
over our shoulders for Riders in the dark. The clip clop of the skinny pony
Aaron had stolen didn't help any. Apparently our animals had been freed. We'd
lost some of our camping supplies, but we had luckily brought our packs in with
us.
I glanced to Sam, who was leading our new underfed equine friend. He'd
dutifully dubbed the animal "Bill", and taken it in like a little child. We
decided we'd put our packs on him later, when he looked more like he could carry
the weight. For now, he carried only Patrick. You're probably thinking 'ok, so
you'll put a thirteen year old kid on an underfed horse's back, but not a couple
of packs?'. Pat's a little guy, like all of us. I'm about 5'6", and I'm the
tallest of us. Not that there's a huge height fluctuation. Anyway, Pat's the
shortest, youngest and lightest. I thought the packs all together probably
outweighed him, so I insisted he ride on the pony. The poor kid deserved a
break. Aaron had bandaged his wound by tearing up one of the already shorn
sheets, leaving Pat with something that looked like a bandana. Except for the
little red plume that was forming where the cut lie underneath. I felt guilt
every time I saw him, so I looked away from him and Sam to Mike at my side.
"Mike," I started to form the words that would follow this, seeing if I could
alleviate my guilt over Patrick by explaining myself to his closest friend and
cousin.
"Don't even start it Frodo. Its not your fault that me and Pat didn't scoot
back further. The blade barely glanced him, and its not like you were sitting
there urging the thing on to killing us. You were in the same situation as us.
Sure, those things may be after you and I would never have had to come near them
if I'd never been related to you, or befriended you or whatever. But you know
what? That didn't happen so I'm going to live with it. That's what we all need
to do, Frodo. We need to live with what's happening to us. You most of all,"
Mike had obviously been preparing this for sometime, waiting for an opportunity
to hit me with it, "and since we're already this far along with you... we're
staying with you."
"Mike."
"What? Not like you can argue it. That'd be changing something!"
I couldn't help but laugh a little, and slung my arm across his shoulders. It
didn't seem like we'd just escaped from a hotel room where we could have been
killed by Black Riders. It just seemed like we were on another Ring Game. Too
bad this was a falsehood.

"Weathertop... or what I think is supposed to be it, is around here somewhere,"
Aaron informed us, stopping to wait for us to catch up. I should mention now
that we were all shoeless, so we took a little longer to walk. We were just
getting used to walking around all the time without shoes. Building up those
calluses. Of course, we'd been walking for a few days, and all sported blisters
and limps. So why were we shoeless? Cramped toes, itching hair, and blisters
any ways. I felt like shaking my little fist at the sky, 'Why can't you create a
shoe for hobbits?!' and then, any normal, sane person would drag me off to a
mental hospital.

Section Two: Weathertop

A ruined structure jutted into the sky, like the bones of an enormous animal
long dead. I couldn't tell what it had been, besides large.
"This is Weathertop?" Mike asked looking up at Aaron.
"Yep."
He led us into the crumbling structure, looking around as he did, "I'd take you
somewhere else, my little friends... but I don't want to risk a change that
severe in locations. You've done pretty good with that so far, no reason to ruin
your record. But, the thing is... with this you have more of a chance to run
from them. Its like a warren of old rooms down those stairs... I want you all to
be careful. You have weapons?"
"Oh! Yes, we do!" Sam piped up when I was about to deny having weapons, making
me remember the swords. Sam took his pack off and produced his own. I did the
same, and Mike retrieved his and Pat's.
"Good!" Aaron laughed, taking mine and examining it, "Little short swords, very
good. But do not strike the Riders-"
"Blades'll crumble," I smiled, "I remember."
Aaron handed the blade back to me, laying his hands on my shoulders, "Then
you... also remember what happens here?"
"Unfortunately. I get stabbed by a Morgul blade," luckily, I didn't realize what
this all entailed when I said that. I mean, pain hadn't hit me yet, especially
nothing that couldn't normally hurt me. You could always blister your feet, but
it wasn't every day you got to be stabbed by an enchanted blade. I admit I was
stupid, and should have thought more about it so I suppose I'll excuse you
sitting there laughing, 'What an idiot!'
Aaron nodded, and squeezed my shoulder, "I'll be on watch."
When he'd left, I found the others staring at me silently. I guess they knew
what I was getting myself into better than I did. Mike and Pat had already
experienced the Black Riders. Sam was in terror for me, and I was being my
normal dumb ass self. You know, don't worry about me. I'm the Ringbearer... I
have to live. I should have thought more about it not going exactly by the
novel, more like the world as it is.
Night again crept over us, the shadows started their whispering. I tried to
sleep, curled against Sam as he pointedly refused to. Pat had gone out like a
light, Mike sitting beside him like a sentinel. I kept jerking awake at every
little noise. Sam sighing each time and trying to soothe my anxious nerves. Which
was a virtual impossibility.
Aaron came around sometime late in the night, and sat down with an unimpressive
thud, "I see nothing, I hear nothing. Nothing but crickets."
This did nothing to soothe anyone's nerves.
"Can we have a fire?" Sam asked quietly, obviously sure that I'd passed into
the world of sleep.
"I don't see any harm. The Nazgûl don't like fire last time I checked."
Sam left me long enough to help organize a fire, finally leaving with Mike once
they'd helped Aaron find a metal barrel to create the fire in. I should have
realized that it was wrong for us to separate from each other.
"STRIDER!" Sam's yell startled me out of my half sleep. Aaron was on his feet,
and Patrick was gasping beside me. Mike stumbled up to us first, Sam soon after.
"They're coming!"

We found ourselves stumbling through a dark labyrinth of twists and turns, and
crumbling walls. I couldn't see anything around me, only hear the rushed
breathing of my companions as we all fled a faceless terror into an abyss of
inky black. Occasionally there'd be a loud crash as one of us barreled into a
wall. Sometimes it was me, sometimes I couldn't tell who it was. As I came to
rest against one of the walls trying to listen for the others, it seemed like I
was all alone. What a pleasant illusion. Only moments later I could hear the
heavy thud of iron toed boots, and the whisper of cloth against concrete. We
were being chased into these corners like rabbits into their holes with waiting
snakes. Terror made my blood run cold as the shadows in front of me moved. Four
shapes were coming, stopped and shrouded in black.
The shadows whispered to me, and my hand crept to my pocket on its own will.
Soon my fingertips brushed cold gold, and the Ring was in my hand. Before I
thought about it, the Ring made itself comfortable on my finger, and I was again
plunged into that alien world. The shadows in front of me became suddenly
illuminated. Four men, withered with empty eye sockets stood before me, the one
in the center tall and proud. He looked at me with his empty sockets and came
forward, drawing a long knife. I couldn't go anywhere, and he was drawing
nearer.
'Give us the Ring!' the voice was in my mind as he came closer, reaching out a
skeletal hand. My own reached out to greet his to my horror, and his fingers
wrapped around the one baring the Ring. I felt it begin to slip with the satin
touch of ghostly flesh, and clenched my fingers. The pale king let out a cry of
rage, shrill to my sharpened hearing, and pulled his hand away, the one baring
the glowing blade coming in. It pierced my shoulder, resulting in my own
piercing scream. Pain shot through my body from my shoulder, followed by an icy
shock.
"Take off the Ring!" Aaron's voice suddenly reached me, followed by the flash
of fire in my strange world. I could still hear my own scream echoing in my
ears, and the hiss of the pale king as he drew away to face Aaron. I couldn't
see him as clearly as the kings, but it seemed he had a sword. He was near to
me, picking my own off the ground and slashing at the wraiths, "Where are you,
Frodo Baggert? Take off the bloody Ring!"
I slowly unclenched my fingers, feeling dizzy and wrought all the way through
with pain and ice. I fainted as the Ring left my finger.