Tall ships and tall kings
Three times three,
What brought they from the foundered land
Over the flowing sea?
Seven stars and seven stones
And one white tree.
It is the beginning of the Fourth Age and the Golden Age of Gondor. Aragorn Elessar is King and he rules with his beautiful and efficient Queen, Arwen. All is at peace and the lands torn by War are healing.
It should be the time of Peace and plenty, except there are bonfires on the Barrow Downs and strange happenings on Amon Sûl. Rumours of tall strangers in Bree and Merry has disappeared. The Three Hunters are called upon once again to track down a missing Hobbit. Adventure beckons and they cannot resist.
Prologue
March 3020.
The year after the War of the Ring.
The Shire
Buckland Moor was just slipping into evening when Merry clambered up onto the Beacon, the granite tor that was the highest point in the Shire and had the best view all the way from Bree to the Far Downs in the West, and looked back down towards Brandybuck Hall. Already he could see the little lights wink on one by one in the rambling smial. It was a calm, peaceful evening in the Shire and the sun sank behind him in a flood of crimson and gold. Spring was almost here but the air was still cold and a frost often silvered the grass in the early morning. Above him now, the stars pricked out one by one in the deepening sky.
Merry breathed in deeply, remembering how the Fellowship would start waking about now in the early days of the Quest when secrecy was still the aim. Smiling, Merry felt for his pipe. He had a little time to sit and smoke and watch the sun going down.
He did miss the Quest; the friendship, the excitement. Even the danger. Stuffing the bowl of his pipe ( a gift from Aragorn) with Harad Smooth Gold, (a gift from Gimli) he struck his small, beautifully crafted tinder box (a gift from Legolas).The flare lit up his face. Shadows leapt up suddenly in the little crevices and between the rocks where he sat, and then they sank again as the flame died.
He drew hard on the pipe and took a deep breath of fragrant pipe smoke and leaned back against the granite rock, cool now that the sun had slid below the horizon in a pink wash of sky. Could he see The Hill rising up from the froth of apple blossom that were the orchards of Hobbiton? Probably not, he admitted. But he imagined, nevertheless, Frodo and Sam sitting down to dinner and hoped they were making use of the pint glasses he had given them the last time he visited.
He puffed a little on his pipe, thinking. Frodo had looked ill when he had last been to Bag End. Pinched. Hollowed out almost.
A haunting cry echoed over the empty Moor and he sat up suddenly, turning towards the sound. It is only a curlew, he told himself firmly. The Nazgûl are gone, he reminded himself. Forever.
Beyond the little lights of Buckland the Old Forest huddled, and beyond that, the darkness settled over the Barrow Downs.
An icy finger stroked the back of his neck and he shivered, pulled his coat more tightly about himself. Even now, he avoided the Barrow Downs and when he visited Bree, he used the Great East Road though it added to his journey.
Last time he had visited Bree, there was a nervousness and his cousin, Tubby, had told him of strange rumours about the Barrow-Downs; bones left at the mouth of the barrows, strange carvings had appeared on the tall standing stones. And Strangers seen in the distance. Tall. Clad in dark cloaks and with gleaming swords.
It was said.
But Tubby could not really be trusted. He loved a good yarn and a pint of ale made him very chatty. Merry drew in a lungful of smoke and blew it out between his lips contemplatively.
Long shadows cast by the setting sun behind him stretched over the tumbled granite rocks. It was suddenly colder. Merry shook off the little niggle of fear that had raised the hairs on his neck. He was not afraid of rumours on the Barrow Downs, or worried about being out in the dark on his own; he was a Knight of Rohan and Companion to the Ring Bearer. He had braved the Nazgûl, fought Orcs and Goblins, stood with Gandalf against the Balrog. Run away when Gandalf said to, he reminded himself.
So he wasn't worried.
Not at first.
And then, far away upon the Barrow Downs, a light flickered in the darkness.
He stared.
It was high up, upon the Downs. Where the Barrows were, the tall standing stones like silent accusing fingers. Or warnings. A place of Summoning.
'There are older and fouler things than Orcs in the deep places of the world." Gandalf had said once as they stood on the brink of the Mines of Moria.
From above now, on the granite tor, was the sound of small pebbles. Was that a foot scuffing? Was that the sound of ancient iron scraping on a scabbard?
He drew his own knife. Eyes wide, he stared about himself. Twilight distorted the stones, deepened the shadows.
And then a shape clambered over the rocks towards him. It was tall. A hood was pulled down over its face and the moonlight glimmered on a long sword.
Merry gasped.
He could not fight this tall, shrouded figure. He ran. Ran down the steep hillside, leapt over the granite rocks, heart pounding. He knew the Stranger pursued him and then suddenly, something caught round his ankle. A bramble. He fell, tumbling over and over.
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