Hey :) I'm sorry that I missed last week. My life has been extremely hectic, and I have an awful lot going on right now, so I can't promise that this won't happen again, but I'll do my best to keep weekly updates going when I can. I appreciate your patience and continued support more than you could know. As ever, please forgive my typos, and I hope that you enjoy this chapter.

Chapter Seventy-Three: The Warg and the Whiner

His mind tumbling through a thousand troubled thoughts, Frodo kept watch over his sleeping cousins. It had taken him and Sam a good while to cajole Nelly and Bróin into resting, but eventually they had rested their heads and closed their sunken eyes.

He wondered if they knew how exhausted they looked. How starved, how dangerously close to sickness and death. When Bróin shifted, Frodo could see scars, still red and angry, on his arms and neck and face. When Nelly's head tilted to the side, he could see hollow cheeks, and shadows cast by the protruding bones of her face.

It terrified him. All their lives, Nelly and Bróin had been the ones to bounce back from anything. They were the ones who seemed to retain the endless energy of children, the ones who feared nothing, the ones with minds sharper than arrow-tips. The ones with a well of confidence as deep as Khazad-dûm.

Now, they looked so fragile that they barely looked like themselves.

Of course, he was not surprised – after everything they had been through, after all that had been done to them, of course they were exhausted, and battered, and starving. It was not surprising, but that did not mean that it was not painful to see.

Frodo wished that they had more food, he wished it so hard that it hurt. He and Sam had rationed carefully, and through both that and sheer dumb luck, he was hopeful that they had enough to sustain all four of them into Mordor, but there would not be enough to reverse the damage that Saruman had done. There was not enough to put the shape back into Nelly's cheeks, or to stop her collar bones from sticking out so far. Bróin had not lost as much weight as she had, but Frodo was not sure if they would have enough food to chase away the young dwarf's grey pallor.

Now, dusk was bringing a softer shade of light, and Frodo knew that soon, he would have to wake them both. They could not linger all day and all night, and Sméagol preferred to move when it was dark. To Frodo's shame, he had quite forgotten about Gollum until after Nelly and Bróin fell asleep.

He was comforted slightly by the fact that Sméagol would never know that he had been forgotten. The last thing he needed was for Sméagol to start slipping backwards, to lose what trust he had in them. At first, Sam and Sméagol had seemed to loath each other, and bickered whenever they had the chance, but that had already begun to change.

"I hope that there might yet be a chance for him, Sam," Frodo had whispered, one night while Sméagol was hunting. "That he might get some redemption, do some good in the world. But I don't think we'll coax anything good out of him if we're harsh, or cruel."

Since then, Sam had been nothing less than kind to Sméagol, who over the last week had been making what seemed to be great progress, even going so far as to be civil with Sam.

Luckily, Nelly and Bróin would not rock the boat too much. Sméagol was due back any minute – it had been several hours since he left, and he was rarely gone for much longer than that.

Frodo glanced at Sam. His friend's face was in shadow, and its expression was dark. Bróin's head was resting in his lap, and Sam gazed down at the young dwarf, clenching his fingers.

"Are you alright?" Frodo asked softly.

Sam shook his head slightly. He did not look up. "If I'm perfectly honest, Frodo, no, I'm not alright at all."

Frodo hung his head, and his gaze fell upon Nelly. Her head was pillowed by his legs, and there was a look of peace on her face, but it gave no relief to Frodo. Not when there were so many bruises. Not when he had been told of so much horror. "No… me neither."

"I… I keep thinking that we should've turned back, that we could've helped," murmured Sam, tucking his cloak more tightly around Bróin's shoulders. "That we should've turned back, and tried to help…"

"Me too. But if we did, Saruman would have the ring by now," said Frodo heavily. "All would be lost, and it wouldn't have stopped any of this from happening."

"I know," said Sam, wiping angrily at his eyes. "I know we did what was right. But I… my mind keeps wandering without me asking it to. I keep imagining what they did to them, what that monster nearly did to Nelly…"

Frodo shuddered. "I'm not sure that they should come on with us," he admitted, his heart sticking in his throat. "I don't want to let them out of my sight, but I don't want to take them to Mordor, either. They've been through so much already."

"Aye," murmured Sam darkly. "More than we have, that's for certain. But would they leave?"

Frodo shrugged, and rested his hand on Nelly's shoulder. She did not stir. "I doubt it. It's worth asking, but I doubt it. But if they did go, we wouldn't… we wouldn't know if…"

Sam nodded, and Frodo stopped trying to finish the sentence. It was bad enough before, not knowing whether any of the fellowship had made it out alive, but to know of how much his friends had suffered, and how close they had come to death and greater torment would make not knowing insufferable. It would eat him alive.

But if they were caught – if Frodo had to watch such things occur –

He closed his eyes, and shook his head slightly. With his hand on Nelly's shoulder, he could feel her breathing, feel her chest rising and falling, and if he lied to himself strongly enough, he could nearly believe that it was enough that Nelly and Bróin were simply alive. Nearly.

A vicious howl split the air in two, stopping Frodo's thoughts in their tracks, and he leapt to his feet as a strangled scream and a barrage of fierce, furious barks broke through the echoes.

"Sméagol!" he cried, feeling the blood drain from his face as Nelly and Bróin jolted awake.

"Toothy," Bróin breathed, scrambling to his feet and rushing to the mouth of the cave, despite Nelly and Sam's protestations. Frodo followed, his grip tight around the hilt of his sword, and they scrambled up in time to see a great rock hurtle down from the sky, smashing into the face of the warg. The creature let out a howl of pain, and Bróin roared.

"Hey!" he yelled, stooping to grab a stone of his own and lobbing it before Frodo could stop him. "Leave him alone!"

"Wait-"

"Master!" screeched Sméagol, dodging Bróin's rock and shooting higher up a nearby tree. "Master, help us, help us!"

"Bróin, call off the warg!" Frodo cried, but when Bróin stepped forward the warg turned and snapped, growling at him. Frodo seized Bróin's arm and the warg twisted around, snarling at Frodo with eyes lit with fury.

"Stop, Toothy, stop!" ordered Bróin, his hands shaking as he held them up. "It's alright, it's alright, I'm here. You can stop now, you can stop now. Good boy, shh, good boy."

"Mahal…" breathed Nelly, and Frodo tightened his grip on his sword as Toothy leant closer to Bróin.

Then, the warg licked the young dwarf on the chin, and Frodo could breathe again.

"There we go," murmured Bróin, scratching behind the warg's ear. "Good boy. Good boy."

"Master!" wailed Sméagol once more, and Toothy looked up with a growl, flattening his ears to the side of his head.

"It's alright!" Frodo called, holding out his hand. "It's alright, Sméagol, these are our friends. You can come down, he won't hurt you."

"What's a Sméagol?" Nelly asked Sam in a whisper, but Frodo did not turn to her. Instead, he held out his hand, and watched as Sméagol slowly, slowly, slid down the tree.

"Dwarveses," he muttered, in a dark tone that Frodo was not too happy to hear. "Dwarveses and hobbitses and wargses, not nice, not nice precious."

"Sméagol," he said firmly. "This is Bróin, and Nelly. They are our friends, and they are here to help us. This is… Toothy. Their warg. He will not hurt you either, but you mustn't hurt him."

"Wargs are cruel," hissed Sméagol, still clinging distrustfully to the tree. "Tricksy, false! They scratch and bite, and bite, Master."

Frodo took a deep breath, and then took a step closer. "This one will not bite you. Now come down, and say hello. Nelly, Bróin, this is Sméagol. He has been helping to guide us. You have heard of him as Gollum."

"You are trusting Gollum?" cried Nelly, and as Sméagol drew himself up, Sam snorted.

"Now I thought much the same thing too, but he's proved mighty useful so far, and we haven't been taming no wargs, Nelly. I think we're much saner than you are," he said. Frodo shot him a grateful smile.

"Sméagol leads nice hobbitses to dark places, and helps kind Master," said Sméagol, glaring at Nelly. He slunk down from the tree, and when Toothy did not move, he crept forward, clinging to Frodo's hand with clammy fingers. "Sméagol helps good Master. He does nothing to hurt Master, no he doesn't. But he does hurt bad things – things that slink and spy in the dark. Things that will hurt Master – things that are tricksy, and false-"

"Yes alright, that's enough of that, thank you Sméagol," said Frodo sharply, not at all liking the hatred with which Sméagol looked at Nelly. "I appreciate all you have done for us – I have said it before and will say it again. But Nelly and Bróin will not hurt us. They are not tricksy, or false. I expect you all to get along, now. We are all on one side, and you will act like it."

For a moment, Nelly looked like she was going to argue, but then her shoulders slumped, and she shook her head a little. She was still standing, half-hidden, behind Sam. "Of course, Frodo. Sorry."

He tried to smile. "It's alright. I think we all just gave each other a bit of a shock. Now, did you find yourself any food, Sméagol?"

Sméagol's scowl deepened, and he curled his shoulders, looking remarkably like a dog raising its hackles. "Sméagol did find food. Good Sméagol found ratses, yes, ratses, but then we returns to find the warg, and we thinks that the warg has eaten nice Master, and we drops our crunchable ratses in surprise, and the warg eats all Sméagol's dinner, yes, all of it, every bit!"

"Oh," said Bróin, looking a little sheepish. "Sorry about that. Here, do you like jerky?"

Sméagol stared suspiciously at him, "What's jerky?"

"Just dried meat," said Bróin, digging in one of the wolf's saddle bags. "Here."

He tossed Sméagol a piece, and Toothy whined indignantly. Bróin slipped the warg a little jerky of his own, and Sméagol sniffed at his own portion. He nibbled the end and Frodo waited, wondering if Sméagol was about to start wailing about being poisoned again, but the dried meat was clearly close enough to his usual diet, and in a few moments it was gone entirely.

"Nice dwarf," he said. Then, he looked at Frodo, and his face split into a wide smile. "Let's go, Master. You and the fat hobbit and good Sméagol must be going. Bye-bye warg, nice dwarf, rude hobbit!"

"They are coming with us, Sméagol," said Frodo firmly, glancing up at the pair. "I doubt we can persuade them to try and find safety instead."

Nelly and Bróin exchanged a glance, and then both shook their heads.

"Not getting rid of us that easily," said Bróin.

"We're with you till the end, Frodo," added Nelly.

Sméagol scowled. "The warg cannot come. There is stairs in the road, Master, lots and lots of stairs and the warg is too big."

Frodo needed only to glance at Bróin's face to know that leaving Toothy behind was not an option, though he was not much more comfortable than Sméagol was. "Well, we'll climb those stairs when we come to them. For now, he comes with us."

With a look of utter disgust, Sméagol stalked to the front of the group. "As Master says."

Frodo did not miss the resentment in Sméagol's voice, and he stifled the urge to groan. "Come," he said. "Will you lead us on? We should get out of here, in case anyone heard that racket."

With another dark scowl, Sméagol sprang forward, and Frodo could all but see the anger radiating from him. Unfortunately, Sméagol's mood did not improve over the next few days. He scowled when Nelly questioned his plan, and skulked around the corners of the camp whenever they stopped. Though Bróin fed him and Frodo praised him, he still sulked more often than he spoke, and slunk through the shadows like a grumpy ghost.

His greatest grudge seemed to be against the warg. For that, Frodo could not really blame him. Even after a week, it still made him a little uncomfortable to be so close to Toothy, especially as Bróin preferred to ride to ensure that he remained in control. Sméagol hated the warg, and let it be known loudly. Toothy seemed equally appalled by Sméagol, and growled if he came too close – or if he approached Nelly or Bróin, for that matter. Before, Frodo had felt like a father with bickering sons with how Sam and Sméagol were acting. Now he felt like Bilbo trying to hold everyone's manners together at a family gathering.

As the days trundled by, the tension around them rose, and Frodo began to feel stifled, almost strangled, by the distrust and unease in the group. Every time he closed his eyes, whispers raced through his mind. They were fools for trusting a warg – soon it would slaughter them, butcher them, devour them while they slept. It would get them caught, by friend or foe, it would make too much noise, it was chasing away anything they had any hope to hunt.

And Sméagol was growing darker. Trust seemed wrong here, too, with Sméagol skulking through shadows and glaring at them, and using the colder, crueller voice that Frodo associated with Gollum far more often than he used the lighter 'Sméagol' voice. If he slipped away from them, if they lost his trust and he turned on them, they could lose everything.

If Frodo could chase those worries away, other fears swept down to take their place. Nelly was still so skinny, and as he had feared they did not have nearly enough food to do anything about it. After a day of stubbornly swaying on her feet, Frodo had pulled rank and ordered her to ride with Bróin on the warg, but there was little else he could do. The dark circles beneath Bróin's eyes were not lightening, and the tremor had yet to leave his fingers, and Frodo did not know how to fix that either.

Sam was ever at his side, a constant, a source of hope and strength, but he was beginning to bicker with Sméagol again, snapping out warnings if ever their slinking companion was heard muttering about Nelly or Bróin.

But worst of all, worse than all those thoughts, were the whispers that were not his own. The ring had been getting stronger, and its voice louder, with every step closer to Mordor. It was a constant, droning buzz beneath any conversation, and in the silence it was relentless, crooning to him without taking a breath.

"Put me on, and become a king. Leave them, and watch the world wonders of the world dance before your eyes, in reach of your hands. Take me home, and reap rewards greater than your wildest dreams. Anything and everything that you have ever desired shall be yours."

Or, apparently bored of futile bribery, the Ring would change its track.

"They will leave you. I see their hearts, see through their lies. They will all leave you, they are cowards and traitors, and they will lead you only to death. Each one of them is watching, watching you, and waiting. Waiting to rob you, to steal from you – to steal me. They will try to take me. They will all try."

Other times, it would proclaim a desire to save them, whisper promises of his family left safe and sound, or it would threaten them, and fill his mind with sickening images of torture and death. He knew that such sights were the work of the ring and not of his own nightmares – he could feel them. He could hear their screams, and smell the stench of the dungeons, and taste blood in the air.

It was no longer enough to simply clutch the shield pendant around his neck. If he squeezed it until his hands bled, it would only buy him a moment's relief. If he gritted his teeth and told the ring how much he loathed it, its voice grew stronger.

The only thing that helped at all was thinking of happier things. Times when his family was together and whole, the great balls that Dís threw, and the smaller, more intimate dinner parties that Bilbo organised. Memories of sleeping safely in dwarven arms could dull the Ring's voice, and listing the people he loved, and how deeply he loved them, could silence it entirely.

If he concentrated.

It was a double-edged sword, after all. If he was not careful, he would begin to fear, and to grieve, and as soon as fear and grief seeped in, the Ring would latch upon them like a leech. He would see scenes from his nightmares, worse than ever before, and the Ring would list off the names of the 'dead', or claim to be the only thing that could save him.

Then, all Frodo could do was look desperately at Sam, and Bróin, and Nelly – look at what he did have, and who had made it this far. It was in those moments that an old, dwarven phrase became his mantra,

Ir-rûzud tanallikhi, id-nûlukh tarazzidi.

The sun is still shining. The moon still glows.

It was not quite as effective as dwelling on the names of his family, but it was less dangerous, and it dulled the voice of the ring, and that was all Frodo dared ask for.

A full week after Nelly and Bróin joined them, they ran into a stroke of luck. Or rather, Sméagol did. He disappeared as usual when they set up camp, but as Frodo quietly nursed a headache and Sam began counting and re-counting the lembas, Sméagol returned with a triumphant cackle.

"Look!" he cried, "Master, Master, look! See what Sméagol finds! Good Sméagol, yes, good Sméagol!"

In his hands were two large, dead hares, and Frodo's heart rose. "That's wonderful. Thank you, Sméagol!"

"It is nice, it is scrumptious, eat it, eat it!" and with that Sméagol bit straight into the belly of one of the rabbits.

"Hey, now!" said Sam warningly, earning him a glare from Gollum. "That's not how we go about eating rabbit – you'll make someone sick, you will."

"How else are hobbitses eating, if they isn't using their mouths?" demanded Sméagol, but Sam just shook his head.

"Now, don't be like that, Sméagol," he said mildly, almost as though he was talking to a child. "We cook them."

"Cooks them?" shrieked Sméagol, leaping back with a look of abject horror, clutching the rabbits to his bare, scrawny chest. "You ruins, you ruinses nice rabbitses!"

"Hey, hey," mumbled Bróin wearily. "Look, fair's fair. Sméagol, you caught them, so you can eat yours however you want. We won't ruin your rabbits. But we can't eat them raw, like you can't eat elf-bread, so we have to cook them. That sound fair?"

Sméagol glared suspiciously at Bróin, and then he smiled, tossing the larger of the two rabbits at the dwarf. "Fair's fair, nice dwarf, yes, fair's fair."

"Thank you!" said Bróin, sounding a little surprised. "You don't think you could give a leg to Toothy, could y-"

"No!" cried Sméagol indignantly, his scowl returning at once. "No, nasty warg won't be eating Sméagol's nice rabbit, Sméagol caught it, we did, fair's fair-"

"Oh, shut up," Nelly groaned, her head in her hands, and Sam opened his mouth to chip in, and Toothy began a low, quiet whine, and Frodo sighed.

"That is enough," he said firmly. "Sméagol, you don't have to share."

At once, Sméagol darted away, hiding in a small bush and ripping into his rabbit. Toothy put his head on his paws and whined sadly.

"I'm with you," grumbled Nelly, leaning over and scratching the warg's ears. "It's not fair, him getting a whole rabbit, when we have to share by five."

"We'll make it stretch," insisted Frodo, staring at Bróin and Sam. "You're the best cooks in the family, after Bilbo and Bombur. If anyone can…"

"Aye," Sam sighed, getting to his feet. "Best I go look for some roots or herbs, if we're to be making a stew. Boromir said a lot of food grows 'round here. That'll be the way to do it, depending on what we can find. Nelly, if you start the fire, Bróin, would you fill up the cooking pot, get the water heated?"

"And I'll sit here like a doll, shall I?" said Frodo.

"No, no, look after our damsel in distress," said Sam, winking at Nelly. "Make sure she doesn't burn Ithilien to the ground."

"Rude," tutted Nelly. "Just rude. You'll be on first watch, Frodo."

"Sounds fair," said Frodo, settling himself down.

In only a few minutes, Bróin returned with the water, and Frodo drank greedily as Nelly helped set up the pot to hang above the fire. It would be some time before it boiled, but at least it was something. A promise of a good meal. It seemed such an impossible thing to hope for, and though Bilbo had often told him that a watched pot never boils, Frodo could not take his eyes away from the water. It was remarkably clean and still, and after a short while, Sam returned, and added some fresh herbs that he had collected.

"I also found some wild parsnips, a couple o' mushrooms and some of these – olives, I think Boromir called them," he said, sitting down with Bróin to prepare the rabbit.

Nelly wrinkled her nose. "Are you sure? They could be something else. Something poisonous."

"I don't think so," said Sam. "Boromir'd mentioned it to me, that we might be lucky enough to pass through Ithilien in olive season. Showed me a picture, he did. He claims they're better than mushrooms, though that I can't agree with."

He held out his hands, offering them to the others, and Frodo found that the strange, oily taste was quite nice – though unlike anything else he had ever tried. Bróin agreed, but Nelly's eyes bulged and her face screwed up. The boys laughed as she winced, and shook her head fiercely.

"Yuck!" she coughed, reaching for the water once more. "By Durin, that's disgusting!"

"Well, there's not much else to pad out the stew, so it's going in, I'm afraid," said Sam.

Nelly moaned. "Fair enough. Just cut it up small enough that I can't see it?"

"You're such a baby, Nell," teased Bróin, and she stuck her tongue out, and Sam laughed, and Frodo felt, for a moment, that the world was at peace.

"They will turn on each other, and turn on you. You will all be slaughtered by your own greed and pride, butchered by your insolence-"

Frodo grimaced, and felt until his shirt for his shield. He took a deep breath, and thought of Thorin, laughing as he tossed Frodo into the warm swimming spring, or murmuring soft stories as he carried Frodo home on his shoulders.

"Thorin listened to the voices in his head, and look where it got him. He nearly killed Bilbo, and he would have, he would have put his hands around Bilbo's neck and crushed his windpipe."

"Are you alright, Frodo?"

He started, glancing up at Sam's earnest eyes. "What?"

"You were growling," said Nelly, glancing worriedly at Bróin.

"I'm fine." Frodo drew a weary smile onto his face. "Truly. The Ring is… incessant. But I'm alright."

Nelly stood up and walked closer, sitting down beside him. She reached towards his neck and took the two chains beneath her fingers, and rage and fear rose hot up Frodo's chest. He clenched his teeth, knowing that it was the Ring, that he was not afraid of Nelly, that she would steal nothing, but it took all he had not to scream at her. His heart beat faster and he clenched his hands into fists to stop his fingers from reaching for her neck, as Nelly pulled the Ring out from beneath his shirt.

Kill her! Screamed the Ring, fear and glee in its voice, and Frodo kept very still.

Nelly took the Ring in two fingers and drew it close to her lips, and the chain was the only thing keeping it from being hers, hers forever, and Frodo's fury roared and his body rose and he saw it in his mind, his fingers closing around her neck and –

"Bugger off," she growled, and Frodo blinked. "No one gives a rats' arse what you've got to say, you shiny lump of orc dung! I mean it. Bugger off."

With that, she tucked the chains back beneath Frodo's shirts and leant back, smiling innocently at him.

"Feel better?"

Frodo laughed weakly. It was all that he could do. He was still trembling, and the image of his own hands strangling Nelly was seared into his brain.

That said, the Ring was quieter now.

"Now, if only words could kill outright," said Sam. "You'd have us out of here in less than a minute, Nelly. Though you'd be next for the chop, if your mother heard such words out of your mouth."

Nelly and Bróin laughed, and Frodo found himself joining in. He wrapped his arm around his cousin, and she snuggled closer, resting her head on his shoulder.

His heart was still going very, very fast. It still pumped anger through his veins, and a part of him wanted to snap at her, to tell her to never touch the ring again, to tell her that she was a fool and a thief and a liar –

But he would not. With every muscle in his body, and every fraction of his soul, he held his anger back, and it took such an effort that his hands shook, and his feet went very cold. It was the Ring. It was not him. It could not be him. It was the Ring. It was not him.

If it was him, if he was falling like Thorin –

It was not him.

If he fell, he could hurt his friends, he might kill them –

It was the Ring. It was not him.

He held Nelly closely, gently, and let his cheek rest on her hair. He would not hurt her. But still…

"Don't do that again," he murmured, as evenly and gently as his voice would allow. "Please. It… Makes things very difficult."

She sat up and frowned at him. "Yelling at the ring?"

He laughed again, weakly again, and shook his head. "No, that was wonderful. But don't touch it. Please. It's… Uncomfortable."

Her frown deepened and she tilted her head to the side. "Uncomfortable? How?"

"Does it matter?"

"Yes," said Nelly sombrely. "We are better to help you, Frodo. How can we do that if you don't tell us what's wrong? Dís says that it helps to talk things through."

"I don't want to talk about it," Frodo warned, but Nelly just smiled sadly.

"That's why it's important."

He felt anger rise in his chest again, felt it twist and seize in his gut, and he ground his teeth together. "It's none of your business! How would you know what helps me?"

Sam winced, and Bróin's eyes widened, but Nelly just gave a little shrug. There were tears dancing on her eyelashes, but that did not fall.

"Because I know you. Better than that thing does. You've been like a brother since we were bairns."

The Ring stoked his fury, flaming it higher, but Nelly did not move, or flinch. She just stared at him with sorrow in her eyes, and he faltered. Looked away.

"Do not touch the ring again," he said. "It makes me want to hurt you."

A log cracked on the fire, snapping, fracturing, and Frodo felt the silence bristle around him. He stared at his hands, and waited for Nelly to pull away.

"I'm sorry," she said quietly. "I'm sorry this is hard for you, and I won't do it again. Not if it didn't help."

Frodo sighed heavily. "It didn't. Not touching it, at least. The yelling worked."

"Good." Nelly paused. "It… it isn't you, Frodo. Whatever it is making your feel, whatever it's trying to make you think – it's not you."

"I know," he said gruffly. "I know."

After a moment, Nelly rested her head on his shoulder again. "This help?"

A small smile tugged onto Frodo's cheeks, and he nodded, wrapping his arm around her once more. "Yes. This helps."

"Told you," she said, sighing and snuggling closer. "Cuddles are like tea for Bagginses. Simple remedy to anything."

Thinking of Fíli and Kíli and Bilbo, Frodo smiled, and cuddled her closer. "True. That is very true."

Slowly, the water boiled, and Sam dropped in the diced meat. What little was left on the bones was tossed to Toothy, who devoured it in a single bite. As the smell of cooking meat slowly rose into the air, Sméagol slipped out from beneath his bush, prowling carefully up to Frodo.

"We should be going, Master," he said. "Must get to the stairses, no time to lose!"

"We have time to cook," protested Bróin. "There's no deadline, 'part from sooner, rather than later, and we'll walk further and faster on a good meal."

"Is there any danger, Sméagol?" asked Frodo, studying the creature's bulbous eyes carefully. "Here, and now, I mean?"

After a long moment, Sméagol scowled. "No…"

"Then why don't you get some rest?" suggested Frodo, as kindly as he could. "Some sleep might do you good."

Still scowling, Sméagol slunk back to the bushes. An hour or so later, the rabbit was finally done, and Nelly's stomach growled so fiercely that Frodo could feel the vibrations as Sam dished up bowls of thin broth. It tasted better than anything Frodo had eaten since leaving the fellowship, and the fact that it was warm made it ten times better. They each had seconds, and thirds, and Bróin offered a bowl to Toothy, who ate almost as greedily as the hobbits. Whether it was the warmth of the food or the nutrition already at work, Nelly and Bróin both looked brighter. Their cheeks, though drawn, were rosy, and their eyes sparkled.

At last, Frodo sat back, his hand resting on his stomach. "I don't think I can move," he said.

"I'll wash up," Nelly offered. "Didn't do much to help with cooking."

She took the pots and bowls and disappeared towards the stream, but less than two minutes later she returned without them. Though it had only just returned, the colour in her cheeks had gone, and there was fear in her eyes.

"Where're my pots?" cried Sam, "If you've ruined them, Pimpernel Took-"

"Shh!" she hissed, pressing a finger to her lips. "Come quickly, and quietly!"

"What is it?" asked Frodo, standing up, but she shook her head and turned back towards the stream. Leaving their belongings behind, the followed, though Frodo and Sam grabbed their swords. Toothy whined, straining against the rope to follow them, but Nelly shook her head and Bróin raced back, putting a hand on the warg's rump.

"We'll be back in a moment," he promised, staring into the warg's eyes. "Wait here, good boy. We'll be back in a moment."

To Frodo's surprise, Toothy sat down, and though he whined softly, he made no move to follow them. Sméagol did, though, slinking past the warg with a vicious glare and hurrying to Frodo's side.

Nelly led them to the stream, and then hopped straight over it, into the brush behind. They followed, though Frodo saw Sam cast a longing look at his pots, resting on the bank. And then he began to hear it – the sounds of people moving. A lot of people moving. Marching feet, and shouted orders. He swallowed.

The bushes thinned, and Nelly dropped down to crawl to the edge of a cliff. The others followed, and peered down into the valley. The sight stole Frodo's breath.

It was an army.

Hundreds of soldiers, menfolk, by the look of them, were marching west, adorned in strange armour, the likes of which Frodo had never seen before.

"Who are they?" he breathed, and beside him, Sméagol hissed.

"Dark men, bad men. They are going to Mordor, to serve him."

"I think they're Easterlings," Nelly added in a murmur. "Nori said that he met some at a bar once, and they had distinctive armour, and hair dark as coal."

"Well," said Bróin, "that sounds about right. We should go. Now."

Frodo nodded, but then Sam gasped.

"Wait!"

Frodo looked back, his gaze following Sam's pointed arm, and then he gasped. There was something coming around the corner of the valley, something the size of a mountain. It looked too big to move, too big to breathe, but it did move and it did breathe, and it bore twenty men on its back.

"I don't believe it," Bróin breathed, as Nelly let out a quiet gasp of a laugh. Frodo rubbed his eyes, and looked again.

"It's an oliphaunt," said Sam, a little unnecessarily. There was nothing else it could possibly be.

"Pippin's not going to believe this," laughed Nelly breathlessly, and Frodo smiled, pleased to hear her speak of her brother in the present tense again.

But then a horn rang through the air, one whose note sounded oddly familiar, and cloud of arrows hailed down on the Easterlings. They began to shout, and arrows flew indiscriminately towards the cliffs.

"Move!" Frodo ordered, but there was no need. Sam and Bróin had already rolled back, Sméagol had vanished into the trees nearby and Nelly was halfway back to the bushes –

And she ran straight into the towering form of a man.

I hope that you enjoyed this chapter, and once again, I'm sorry how long it took! Do let me know what you think/fear/hope, and leave any feedback that you fancy, I would really appreciate it. I'll update when I can, but in the meantime, thank you for reading, and take care!