Author's Note: Thank you again, loyal readers, for your eloquent and heartening reviews. This chapter is somewhat boring in my opinion, but as exposition it is necessary. Know that the coming chapters will be the most dramatic of the story; I will update as quickly as possible.
Chapter Ten: The Journey Continues
Onward they traveled, in which direction Grima did not know for sure, for the Elves had saturated his waking thoughts with longing. As days stretched into weeks and latterly into months he found himself wishing that he had been born one of the Fair Ones. What it would have been, he thought, to live amongst the radiant and wise, and to possess such wisdom himself, looked upon with awe and respect, like the Elf that had come to Edoras had been by Theoden's men. He pondered how his fate would be then; no creature would shrink from him, no shadows would have him, for the light that he possessed would avert its tendrils from his heart.
Alas, he mused, for if that were so Grima would never have succumbed to the will of Saruman. Born instead a repulsive creature of shadows and scorn, and here remains, a slave forever.
He never attempted to soothe himself into believing that he had any strength of will, and thus when his tears began to quietly flow he did not attempt to halt them, but merely wiped them hastily upon his cloak lest his master see and sneer. He could not help thinking, however, on his master, and he wondered that if Saruman were left utterly in the company of himself, with no other watchers, if he would weep similar tears.
No, he decided at last, for the will of Saruman is an unfathomable thing, and would never let his agonies touch the fount of his tears. Unlike poor Grima, slave even unto himself. Would it that something might show mercy, even one of the little insects that light upon my healing wounds and bite.
Yet mercy was not to be, and the Wormtongue knew this, and thus for his part he harboured no false hope. Instead he followed his master, close to the ground, and thought of the Elves and how they would never be forced to crawl on their bellies in the dirt.
"Poor Grima," he muttered to himself one day. "Poor hungry Grima, crawling like a beast. The fates are ever so cruel to him."
"What?" inquired Saruman, for Wormtongue's moaning had been increasing in volume over the past several days. He stopped and looked down at his servant, who thrust his face into the dirt and clutched blindly and subserviently at the hem of his master's cloak.
"Nothing, I say nothing of value, Master, only old stories for company," he cringed, and Saruman frowned at him.
"Be silent, then, if you've got nothing of value to say." The eyes upon him were touched with anger, and yet something nameless glimmered in their depths, and from his low place Grima wondered if Saruman, too, understood his fate and mourned.
The trek began again, and to Saruman's ears Grima was silent, yet the little man still cried softly to himself, though his whimpers were choked and muddy with dirt. By and by he would happen upon a tuft of grass, poking out defiant and hopeless in the ocean of dead brown round it, and this Grima would seize and stuff into his mouth, for food was fast approaching the quantity of his hope, and soon there would be none.
The journey was long and arduous, and once they happened upon two of the halflings, Gandalf, and many men, but the tale of their meeting has been told. Suffice it to say that they carried faster after this, an angry spring in Saruman's step that quickened the pace, as though the presence of Gandalf and his fellows stung some unseen and open wound and made him wish to leave them quickly behind. Grima did not complain to his master, but his days and weeks had run together as written words will when touched with water or blood. He wondered when their traveling would cease, and found that he wished in his heart of hearts that he might die before their footsteps halted, for he found neither hope nor joy at the thought of where they were going. Many nights the wolves would howl around them, and his old wounds would ache as a reminder of their danger; he would edge closer to Saruman though he loathed him, and the wizard for his part did not push him away.
It was one morning when dawn broke that Grima noticed his surroundings, and saw emerald rolling hills that crouched lazily upon the earth like sleeping dragons in the distance. Long had they passed Enedwaith through the gap of Rohan, through which Grima had crawled in a tumult of turgid emotion, and thus passing Enedwaith he knew that they traveled north, over a great rive that Saruman called the Greyflood. A flood it had been, and their robes were sodden for many cold days afterwards, though they felt cleaner for their efforts. There were many days that passed, and the sleeping dragon hills grew larger in the distance, and Saruman told him that they passed now through Minhiraith, and were on its borders. Grima was only mildly curious, for the slog though the river Greyflood had not fully cleansed him of his distress at passing Rohan, and thus his conscious thoughts were hazed by it so that he cared little of what they were passing.
Yet the hills with their emerald cloaks drew his fascination ever more as they grew closer, and it was one day that he heard the great rushing of water and turned to Saruman.
"Master, do we approach another river?"
Saruman nodded slowly, his eyes alight with some new fire, and murmured, "It is the Brandywine you're hearing, Worm. It is a river not so large as the Greyflood, and there is a bridge."
"Where then do we travel?" asked Grima, for three rivers he had already faced on the journey and was growing weary of them.
The fire in Saruman's eyes blazed ever brighter as he said, "We are nearly finished with our travels, Worm. In but two weeks' time we shall be among those hills you see, ina place called the Shire."
"The Shire?" Grima wondered aloud. "What will we do in the Shire, Master?"
Saruman laughed grimly, frighteningly, and thrust his broken staff toward the hills. The sun was rising over them, the breath of dawn was rising warmly, cleanly, and Grima could hear birds singing more merrily than he had heard them since the untroubled days of Rohan. Saruman's voice hushed them as he said,
"I plan to conquer it, Worm."