Chapter 9. Heading to Gondor

We were all woken up early.

Trin and Legolas led me to the stables and pointed to a large black horse.

My first thought was of the black riders but I saw that the horse had a white spot on her head. It was like a star in the black of night.

"Okay, mount." Legolas said smiling. I felt very stupid at that moment. I didn't know how to mount a horse.

Trin seemed to realize this and told it to Legolas. Legolas smiled and heightened the stirrups.

"First rule in mounting a horse is you never walk behind it!" Legolas said this softly so the others couldn't hear.

"You put one foot in the stirrup and just push yourself up." he did this on Arod.

"Easy." he smiled. I looked at the horse and nodded.

Putting one foot on the stirrup I pushed myself up a little to hard and fell over the other side. I laughed along with the others and Legolas told me

"I did that once but I fell forwards and the horse bucked me off." I got on the right way and asked.

"It's just like riding Bill right?" Legolas nodded and smiled.

We started off at a walk to get use to the road.

I learned that Elenril was the name of my horse. I stroked the horse on the neck to earn it's trust.

We stopped for lunch and continued on.

Soon we got to a trot.

At first it was silent then we began to laugh and talk. Some of elves even began to sing.

Soon it got dark.

"Go to sleep Pippin." Legolas' voice came from behind me. "Trin and I will ride next to you so you don't fall off. When you wake we will be in Rohan."

I nodded and fell asleep.



"Wake up!" Legolas shook me and I opened my eyes. It was already light.

"What time is it?" I asked groggily.

"About nine o'clock." Legolas grinned.

"Oh." I whispered, embarrassed that I slept that late.

"Are we in Rohan?" he nodded and said this very sternly.

"Listen up! If you see any troops then don't just think they're good. Some troops could be pretending to be Rohirrim soldiers."

I nodded confused.

"You're going to be scout for a while with Handir." Legolas said. I frowned and moved my horse in the direction of the scowling elf.

When we had ridden up the hill away from the others he glared and snapped. "Okay, here are the rules. I'm right you're wrong, I'm big you're small, I'm in charge your not. When we're up here we will not talk, speak, or even breathe the same air. Got it?"

I stared at him. "Do you have any friends." I asked moving my horse away from his.

He just rolled his eyes and we looked across the fields. We rode for about five miles when I saw some dust flying up in the air. I couldn't see properly so I stood in my saddle.

Over twenty horsemen rode towards us. I nudged Elenril and we galloped back to Handir. I told him what I had seen and he nodded.

We both went back to the others. Legolas told us that Handir would take the horses and we were going to hide in some trees and wait. We waited until the horsemen were in view. They were of Rohan I was positive but were they real Rohirrim?

I got my bow ready when I saw the horsemen ride near the trees.

The elves were about to shoot when I saw something.

A small white horse and it's rider. The rider was small and dressed in Rohan armor but even that didn't hide his curly brown hair. He had large brown eyes and bare feet.

Merry.

"Dartho! Baw!" I leapt down from the tall tree branches and looked at the halfling.

It was Merry all right.

I smiled but I doubt he could see me since my hood was up.

"Merry?" I asked. Merry looked at me really hard the he broke out into a huge grin.

"Pip!" he jumped off the pony and embraced me. I hugged him back and soon we were laughing. I heard a soft thud next to me and saw Trin staring at Merry.

"Man I eneth lín?" what is your name.

"Meriadoc Brandybuck." I answered knowing Merry wouldn't know elvish. My cousin just stared at me.

"You know the elf speak?" he asked.

I chuckled. We always use to call the elven language elf speak.

"Yeah, in a way."

"We bast go back. Handir is keeping all the horses." I walked with Merry until we came to the many horses.

Handir saw us and narrowed his eyes at the humans. "Filthy humans." I heard him mutter then he saw Merry. He just rolled his eyes and walked to his horse.

I walked over to Elenril and grabbed her reigns.

Suddenly she reared up screaming and bolted. I looked around and saw a arrow with the tip pulled off.

I glared at Handir who was putting away his bow.

"Does he always do that?" Merry asked smiling.

"Yeah, Elenril tulo si!" Elenril come here! I yelled to the horse. Elenril recognized my voice and jogged back to me.

"Smart horse." Merry smiled. I helped him on and we rode back to the camp area they were setting up.

"Hey Pippin." Handir walked over with a smirk on his face. "Your turn to go hunting." he gave us a huge grin and walked off. "Hurry up." the elf said.

I let out a moan and turned to Merry. "Do you want to come?"

I asked. "Sure." he grinned and we set off. I pulled out my bow and we walked until we saw a large duck.

Merry and I looked at each other. I reached into my quiver and pulled out a arrow.

I aimed and fired. The arrow hit the duck in the back of the head but it didn't die. The arrow bounced off and fell to the ground while the duck flew away.

"What the?" I started pulling out one of my arrows then noticed it didn't have a tip. Pulling out another I saw it didn't have one either. I poured out my whole quiver and saw none of the arrows had tips. Merry was laughing mainly because of my reaction. I saw I slip of paper that read.

Pippin.

Your not going to kill many things with the arrows you have.

Handir

I glared at the letter and read it to Merry.

Merry didn't really seem to care about the letter but was quite worried about what we would eat that night.

Finally we decided to look for some plants.

We got mushrooms, apples, and carrots. When we walked back into camp a few of the elves looked up and smiled.

"Good, some meat."

"Not really. You see Handir here broke my arrows so I was unable to hunt. We're having plants tonight." I said this as cheerfully as I possibly could.

We ate the plants and then set up bed rolls. Merry's was right next to mine.

"I'm glad your back Pip." he smiled as he fell asleep. Me too Merry, I thought, me too.

A/N - Sorry about taking so long. It's close to Christmas and I wasn't able to upload.

Reviews:

Kit Cloudkicker- Yes he would. And your welcome :o)

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