AN: Yeah, the dude definitely got off too easy. I gave you bad writing last time, so hopefully this makes up for it.
Also, everyone PLEASE STAY HOME. This isn't the end of the pandemic, even with increased vaccination; we can't let our guard down yet. Especially with the new variants being so much more transmissible. Thank you, everyone who is doing your part to help stop this from getting even worse.
Chapter 31: The Ring Goes South
We set out at fuck'o'clock in the morning on Christmas and things didn't get much better from there over the next couple of weeks. It didn't help that Boromir blew his stupid fucking horn when we set out, proclaiming that he always does it and, "He wouldn't sneak out like a thief in the night."
I took the opportunity of everyone else figuring out his logic to lean over and say, "Uh, that's exactly what we're trying to do, honey."
Despite his betrayed look, we continued in silence.
The wind bit and nowhere was safe from the cold that nipped at exposed flesh, leaving everyone to sleep in their outerwear during the day and stumble south at night. That no legs were broken in that time was a miracle with how little light we traveled by.
For the same reason as we traveled at night, there was no fire when we stopped. All food was in the form of increasingly dry bread and chewy dried meat or fruit; there would be no tea or even potatoes until we were well away from Rivendell.
Not much was said beyond assigning watches and jobs. It was probably for the best with how foul our moods were, snappish and miserable.
I missed home and my family and Damascus and Gander so much that sometimes it felt like a physical lump in my throat. At the end of the night I especially missed Gander, the eternal furnace that he was. Boromir was better than nothing but was so wrapped up in his own layers that warmth was difficult to share even huddled together.
Not used to traveling by foot, I was sore by the end of the third day. This was a faster pace than from Bree and the hobbits at first had a bit of trouble too. But by the end of the first week we all trudged in relative peace, heads down, blind and weary.
Except for Legolas and Gimli, anyways. Those guys could apparently see in the dark just fine and used that to harass each other at the slightest opportunity. At first it was funny. By day ten, I wanted to strangle them both.
Finally we reached a place called Hollin, not much different from anyplace else we had seen on the way, but Gandalf reacted differently to it. There was something like relief as he proclaimed that the influence of the elves was still here. I didn't care until he said that we were safe to take a long rest; from here we would walk under the sun.
Everyone made camp swiftly and now that a fire was allowed, I skipped merrily away to collect dead wood. Finally, more than one minute alone! In the daytime! I did a little dance once I was out of sight, and then started scrounging.
Unfortunately, I got lost while I was collecting the firewood. It's easy to get turned around in the wild and since the fellowship was trying to keep quiet, I couldn't hear them. Panic threatened but then I remembered- haven't I run into Frodo every time I wandered or was lost? I felt the urge to go west and within fifteen minutes was back where I belonged, dumping a pile of wood at Legolas's feet so that he could light it.
At least there was one good part of having a telepathic ring of evil around, I considered as I watched Sam prepare stew. It was bothersome like a fly around my ears and had the potential to corrupt anything it touched, but it was great for guiding me back to the fellowship.
Apparently said ring had decided that malice wouldn't quite work on me and was on a charm offensive, cooing in my head that I deserve it. After all that I've given, after all that I've suffered, don't I deserve this little thing? It wasn't like I'd abuse it's power, it whispered.
Was it trying to turn into a mental health counsellor or something? I got an image of Sauron as he was painted in Rivendell, sitting with a clipboard and a patient lying back on a couch. Did the ring huff at me when I thought about that?
For the most part I simply told the outside voice to buzz off and compartmentalized it into a box. It was handy, I found, to simply be for a moment to press the ring out. It's hard to pay attention to the voice of malice when I'm focusing on the smell of trees and the feel of the breeze on my skin, how my pulse feels in my hands and the sounds of animals all around.
When Sam declared the meal ready I got my bowl and spoon, and just had to ask, "This is safe for humans, right?"
When I winked at the bewildered hobbit, he whacked me with the ladle and I laughed. "I'm sure it's great, Sam," I told him, meaning it, "You know I tease."
"I know, Miss Cass," he replied seriously, "But potatoes aren't a thing to tease about."
Considering the wonders he could work with potatoes, no they weren't. The stew was as good as anything I'd had on the road and certainly better than I could make.
Merry and Pippin decided that they wanted to continue learning swordsmanship, so Boromir gave them lessons that the rest of us watched. Occasionally Strider or Gimli would call out some advice.
Meanwhile Gandalf used the time to think Deep Thoughts that I didn't dare interrupt except to bring him dinner. "Sam makes some good travel food," I said as I handed him the bowl.
"He is an excellent cook," Gandalf agreed, then said, "Have a seat, please." He gestured to a rock a couple feet away, which I settled on with my own bowl.
"What's up?" I asked and began to eat.
For a moment Gandalf frowned, but then appeared to get the idea. "Of the fellowship, you know the coming land the best. How would you advise that we get to the Gap of Rohan? I have ideas but local advice is always to be asked," he questioned.
"Hm," I mumbled and closed my eyes, envisioning a map of the area around home. "I think the main problem would be that Saruman is on the other side now," I admitted, "The Dunlanders are friends of the family, so they'll help us, and if we skirt around Fangorn we can probably avoid the Rohirrim- or at worst I can throw my weight around to get us east of the Wold and over the Anduin. But there's no way around Saruman that I know of, if we continue this way. Not unless you wanted to go by the coast."
A weary sigh. "Thank you, Cass," Gandalf murmured, "Perhaps another route is in order…" He didn't offer any further conversation, eyes gone far away again, so I turned my attention to the hobbits' attempted swordplay.
At least I did until I heard the name Moria. Immediately I swung around to face where Gimli stood, extolling the virtues of going under the mountains. It sounded like a great idea the way he said it, but I was reminded of Magni's worries; Gandalf's expression and tone only made that feeling worse when he replied, "No Gimli, I would not take the roads through Moria unless I had no other choice."
Figuring Strider would have an idea, I looked around for him, only to start laughing when he got pulled off his feet by the hobbits.
"He's got my arm!" Merry shouted, clearly enjoying himself.
At about the same time Sam asked what something was, pointing to the east. Gimli dismissed it as a wisp of cloud, but it was too dark and small compared to the surrounding fluffy giants. Then Boromir pointed out it was moving against the wind.
"Crebain from Dunland!" Legolas shouted.
"Hide!" Strider bellowed and swiftly tossed his belongings under a rocky outcrop.
While I had no idea why we were hiding from birds, I could be very good at obeying orders; I jumped down to my pack and threw it into some bushes, then tossed my halberd in a crevice and jumped after my pack.
"Oof!" Between the smell and the voice, it was Boromir. Thank god.
As it was, I was barely able to slide part-way off of him before the birds were over us. The cacophony was deafening, the birds evil in a way I've never felt from animals before. I froze to the point of barely breathing as we were passed over.
In some of my worst timing yet, I remembered that my husband was hot and I was on top of him. Ignoring my stupid libido, I focused on every part of my surroundings except Boromir. Or at least I tried.
The unfriendly fly-over seemed to last forever and I wondered if this would be like in The Birds. Would they attack? I wondered wildly what could even be done in that case; would a bunch of fucking birds be the end of us?
Eventually the crows finished their inspection and slowly left us be. Had we managed to fool them?
At the very least I was able to apologize to Boromir for landing on him as we clambered to our feet. "You alright?" I asked, watching him rub his ribs where the bulk of me had landed.
"Fine," he replied with a strained smile.
Then Gandalf proclaimed the birds as spies of Saruman and said we had to climb Caradhras.
As one, everyone looked up at the intimidating peak towering over us, capped in white. Every single one of us seemed to think the same thing: oh shit, this was going to be cold.
It was. At first I didn't mind, the snow was light and the slope wasn't terribly steep. Camping was uncomfortable but Gimli was able to get a fire going so it wasn't that bad.
The next day, things got really uncomfortable. As we ascended the snow only got deeper and the slope steeper. Frodo even stumbled and fell fast enough that if Strider hadn't caught him, I wondered whether he would have rolled the rest of the way down. Then he felt around in his shirt, alarmed.
At the same time Boromir crouched down and I barely caught a glimpse of a silver chain in his hand. The urge to walk over told me exactly what he was holding. "It is a strange thing that we should suffer such fear and doubt over so small a thing," he murmured, barely audible.
My grip tightened on my halberd.
"Boromir," I called, warning in my voice.
"Such a little thing," he continued, voice one of a hypnotized man.
"Boromir!" Where my voice had failed to get through to him, Strider's sharp bark did; he startled.
"Give the ring to Frodo," Strider ordered, voice dark and tense.
I wasn't the only one to loosen my grip on a weapon when Boromir gave it back, with a chuckle he definitely didn't feel and a terribly demeaning ruffle to the hobbit's head. Absently I wondered if Boromir still would've done that knowing Frodo was a decade older than him.
When Boromir looked up the slope at me, I gave him a big grin. I was worried about the ring's pull on him but that only made support more important.
The strained little smile he returned made me feel all warm and fuzzy. We continued climbing.
A few hours later we hit a brick wall of a snowstorm. It came on so suddenly that I was bewildered and barely had time to use the bathroom before it would have been dangerous to have my pants down. I couldn't quite see Bill's poor lumbering shape just a few feet away for several hours and it only got worse as we struggled on.
The trenches that Gandalf and Bill made fell back in just inches after they passed. The rest of us had to almost swim through the blistering cold white hell. It got so bad that Gimli had to ride Bill and the hobbits had to be carried. At least Pippin kept my back a little warmer with him on it, no matter that I could barely feel my arms after a few hours.
Meanwhile that bastard Legolas could walk on top of the snow! On top of it! I was tempted to trip him as he passed me for the fifth time. He shouted something that I couldn't hear.
Gandalf, I could definitely hear. "IT'S SARUMAN!" he shouted.
There was a rumble and we all jumped toward the sheer wall of stone on our left. My eyes went wide as several large boulders barely missed us.
"He's trying to bring down the mountain!" Strider shouted, "Gandalf, we must turn back!" Now there was a plan I could agree to.
"No!" Gandalf answered desperately. He then began chanting some kind of spell that had no effect whatsoever except to give me a headache.
As if that was some kind of password, there was a thunderous crack and the sky above turned from grey to bright snow white. Automatically I leaned over to grab Legolas, who had been prancing on the very edge of the path, and threw us back toward the cliff. On my back Pippin cried out as we were all buried in snow.
Regrettably I had to let go of the hobbit to dig the snow from over our heads, concerned when his arms barely tightened around my neck. "Stay awake, Pippin!" I urged once Legolas helped me to clear a space to breathe through. Damn being short.
I heard Boromir, Aragorn, Gimli, and Gandalf all argue but not the words; I was still digging the snow from around my head and shoulders. I got the message when Frodo said with the utmost certainty, "We will go through the mines."
Considering that freezing to death is a slow and painful thing, I didn't mind at all. Let the orcs or goblins or whatever the fuck come, at least we won't die like those poor people on the Titanic.
There was a sense of defeat as we descended Caradhras. At the same time we were horribly relieved to be leaving with our lives. There were other ways around, as long or difficult as they may be; we could take one of those.
We walked and walked, not willing to spend the night even on the foothills we had found so charming yesterday. By the time the fellowship was on even ground it was night and we collapsed at the roots of trees, weary beyond anything we had ever felt. Or at least that was how I felt. My back ached from the hours carrying Pippin and my legs felt like bricks, unable to move more than an inch or two.
That could've gone better, I thought half sarcastically to myself. No one else had the energy to speak so dinner was cooked and eaten in silence. Cloaks were hung up and mostly dry blankets pulled from packs to shiver exhaustedly under for the night.
I was pulled from my sleep by howling far too close to us. Blearily I sat up when Strider shouted but only really got the idea when Frodo let out a battle cry.
Frodo, I realized and was immediately awake. Just in time I got my halberd up and found myself holding off a pair of smelly, slobbering jaws attached to a large wolf. "Can't we get one fucking night of rest?" I demanded of the animal.
It jumped back and before it could leap again, I managed to hack at its shoulder with the axe head. When it howled piteously, I took its head most of the way off.
I was just in time to swing up at a wolf leaping at Boromir's back.
A third attempted to have a hobbit-sized snack and ended up with my pike in its chest before the pack withdrew, howling plaintively. "Anybody injured?" I asked tiredly, rubbing my eyes.
By a miracle, everyone was fine.
There was no way we could continue to rest here so we moved several miles southeast before we collapsed for several more hours of sleep. This time we were left alone to drag ourselves from our blankets for a small meal. And then more trudging.
Gimli only became more gleeful as we grew closer to Moria. Beer and roasted meat sounded fantastic; my stomach rumbled as he continued to describe the tales of Durin's Halls. I couldn't get excited though, with Strider and Gandalf being so unhappy with the decision. Magni's words once again bothered me when we came across a dried up riverbed that led into the gorge we needed.
A pair of trees marked the western entrance to Moria and we stopped for a while after it turned out that no one knew the password. Shouldn't they have realized that before we came in here?
I didn't like the idea of Moria but the lake really gave me the creeps. Not even counting that it was a dark, otherworldly pool and my fear of deep water. Bored, Pippin and Merry threw a few stones in; Strider got to them before I could with a terse, "Do not disturb the water."
Sadly we had to send Bill home. "He's a sensible pony. He knows to go home," I told Sam, who was crying as we redistributed the luggage onto our own backs.
"I hope he goes to Rivendell and not Bree," Sam told me, voice choked, "Bill Ferny might try to take him back. And there's still those wolves out here!"
He wasn't wrong and I didn't try lying to him.
Then Frodo got a brainwave. "Speak friend and enter," he repeated, revelation in his voice as he scrambled to his feet. "What's the elvish word for friend?" he asked.
"Mellon," Gandalf answered, voice low. His delighted laugh was almost lost under the grind of doors opening, ten feet tall and two feet thick.
The stench of must and decay hit me in the face and I sneezed violently for over a minute. Did Balin not make it this far in his retaking? I wondered as I buried my nose in my elbow.
Before I could come inside, I heard Gimli howl with a grief that made me shiver.
"Now get out of here! Get out!" Boromir shouted.
At the same time something wrapped around my ankle and suddenly I was being dragged down the stony beach. "Ow, ow, ow!" I shouted as various stones hit my front. I tried to use my halberd's hook to slow me down but couldn't get a good grip with it and found myself airborne.
"Guys?! A little help?!" I bellowed over Frodo's screams as he was also dragged up.
As Boromir and Strider waded into the water to battle some kind of giant squid, I took advantage of having a weapon longer than I am tall. With relatively little worry I was able to stab and hack away at the tentacle that was shaking me around in midair.
There was a moment where I was suddenly unsupported, not falling yet but not rising, and my heart seemed to stop in that brief second. Then motion continued and almost before I could realize I was falling I was in the water. Automatically I dropped my halberd to swim with great effort in the opposite direction as it went, spluttering as I emerged on the lake shore. By a miracle I made it into the mines before the extremely angry lake monster took down the doors, only getting hit by a few stray stones during the collapse.
I shivered in the darkness for several minutes. "Hello?" I whispered.
There was a noise of wood on stone and suddenly light burst out from a crystal on the top of Gandalf's staff. "We now have but one choice," Gandalf said, weary and wary, "We must face the long dark of Moria. Be on your guard. There are older and fouler things than orcs in the deep places of the world."
Hastily we gathered the baggage and I was able to get into my spare outfit while everyone looked the other way. The fabric was thinner than I liked (to be lightweight and small in my pack) but at least it wasn't soaked. My cloak I fastened over my pack to allow it to dry while Boromir chivalrously laid my jacket out over his shield.
Boots squishing, we began the long journey through Moria. The good part: it was only three days. The not so good parts: we needed to be absolutely silent, there was no water source to be trusted in the mines, and there was little chance of escape if we were found. Alright, we could deal with that, I told myself as we snaked along a narrow path.
It was more than a bit annoying when after all of this caution Gandalf risked everything to show us some mithril. It was a fabulous sight gleaming in ribbons throughout the walls, though, deep below our feet and far overhead beyond the reach of Gandalf's light show. That a set of armor, and hobbit sized armor at that, could be monetarily worth more than a whole country was mind blowing.
I wondered how they'd react knowing that Nan had a mithril hip replacement. How much would my titanium cribbage board be worth? I wondered and wished it had come to Middle Earth with us.
Days passed of near-total darkness punctuated only by the crystal on Gandalf's staff and the jewels or mithril that glinted in its wake. We would sleep when we were tired and get up when we had regained our strength, every word and movement hushed.
If it weren't for the darkness, and risk of enemies, I would've had a ball in Moria. There was always some precarious path to follow or ridiculously steep stairs to climb into the darkness. Were it an option, I would've loved to come back and explore all the tantalizing side paths and see where they led, the leaps of logic and legs it would take to get there. What a waste of a maze, I mourned as I climbed.
At one point Gandalf got lost and we were able to take an hour's rest while he tried to remember. I didn't even try not to listen in on his discussion with Frodo. A hanger on, huh? We'd have to sleep even more carefully than before.
Something Gandalf said struck me deeply: "All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us." Advice to live by if there was any.
It also gave me a few things to think about, mostly my own mortality. I knew how I'd die and approximately when- in my late sixties or early seventies, of an arrow to the chest. The problem: was this a stable time loop, or could the butterfly effect fuck me over? Was knowing the circumstances of my own death, insurance or useless? There was no use worrying about it but at the same time the answer meant everything.
Gandalf interrupted my thoughts before they could get too deep or depressing, announcing that he knows the way now. Follow your nose, indeed, I thought with fond amusement.
We were rewarded by a sight that Sam described as, "An eye opener and no mistake!" My jaw may as well have hit my chest for how painfully open it had fallen as my gaze feasted on the sight before me. How could anyone build such massive columns and have them all so... symmetrical? It was ridiculously impressive just in scale, never mind the expert craftsmanship.
My emotional reaction reminded me of when I stood in a ruined mosque in Afghanistan, or a European ossuary: heavy, mournful awe. This was the Troy of the dwarves.
The silence was shattered when Gimli gave a wordless shout and ran through a door to the right. Was that sunlight? When I ran in, I was half following Gimli and half surging toward the sunshine I was starved of.
Legolas followed almost as fast as I did and seemed visibly relieved to see sunshine, even just through a slit high up in the wall. "Elves aren't meant to stay underground this long," he had muttered several times over the past few days, always in his own language and not meant to be heard.
Meanwhile Gimli looked ready to tear his beard out as he sobbed at the foot of an enormous stone sarcophagus. There was a quiet thunk as he set his helmeted head against the stone, clutching it with white knuckles.
Compassionately, Boromir set a hand on our friend's shaking shoulder.
The expression on Gandalf's face turned from consternation to pity as he read the runes carved into the sarcophagus. "Here lies Balin, son of Fundin, Lord of Moria," he said quietly, "He is dead, then. It's as I feared."
Oh damn. Magni had been right to worry, I realized as the magnitude of this discovery hit me. It made my senses jump to attention as Gandalf handed his stuff to Pippin in order to pick up a book held by a skeleton.
While he read, I very quietly and slowly paced the chamber to see for myself what happened. I didn't like the looks of the skeletons and the story of their last days was haunting: trapped here in this tomb to be killed by innumerable enemies. At least they didn't get the chance to starve to death, I found myself thinking as I inspected several skeletons piled into a group near a corner; there weren't any marks from butchery that I could see under the dust.
We needed to leave. The thought hit me like a freight train as Gandalf's haunted voice finished, "We cannot get out… A shadow moves in the dark. We cannot get out… They are coming."
There was a sudden crash and I startled badly. A crack echoed and I winced as I realized I had accidentally jumped right onto one of the skeletons. "Sorry, dude," I muttered to the skeleton and its former owner even as I spun to see who I needed to tell off.
Gandalf was already on it, calling Pippin a "fool of a Took!" and telling him to throw himself down the well next time. Ouch.
For a long moment there was silence. Every heartbeat seemed to last an eternity as we waited for a horde to descend upon us.
After a long moment, everyone else relaxed.
Instead I went tense; in my experience, silence after a sign of my team's presence in enemy territory never led to anything good. My scars were a testament to that. I grabbed a glaive that looked sturdier than the other aged polearms, wishing that I hadn't had to drop my halberd in that goddamned lake outside.
Drums began to beat from below and briefly I wished I had been wrong. When I looked out the door opposite the one we came in, there were no enemies (yet) and I ran back to the group to nearly whisper, "Let's go!" with a jerk of my head in that direction.
At the same time Sam's eyes went wide and he yelped, "Frodo!"
My neck swiveled so fast it nearly hurt, just in time to see the hobbit pull out a blade that glowed blue.
At the same time there were sort of chirping shrieks from the entrance we had come in by, still distant but growing louder at high speed.
"Orcs!" Legolas announced in the same tone as one would swear.
Just as I had on the other side, Boromir ran to the doors and took a good look outside, only to barely avoid getting shot in the face.
My heart stuttered in my chest and I sprinted over to pull him back in by his cloak.
"Get back! Stay close to Gandalf!" Strider dropped his torch and joined us at the entrance, closing the rotten wooden doors against the oncoming enemies. It would give us only seconds, but any time was welcome.
"They have a cave troll," Boromir panted, clearly wondering if today could get any worse.
"How do you know what a cave troll looks like?" I questioned incredulously, a bit shrilly.
He gave me a look like I was stupid and got busy barring the door further with weapons that Legolas threw like they were children's toys.
I took the opportunity to check the other entrance again. Still clear. "Um, why aren't we running yet?" I called to the rest, who were getting ready to fight the oncoming enemy.
Either they ignored my question or didn't hear; at the same time I spoke, there was an enormous bang on the closed doors. And another. And another.
We cannot get out.
They are coming.