Chapter Six
After thanking Éomer they rode to the East, but all they found was a smouldering pile of dead uruk-hai carcasses. They all dismounted, and Ello fell to the ground, she lay very still and took a deep breath. She was used now to the new smells, and the types of smell a man, elf, dwarf, hobbit and even orcs and uruk-hai made. Slowly a tear traced its way down her cheek.
Gimli poked his axe threw the remains, and drew out a buckle. "One of their belts." He muttered sadly and Aragorn yelled and threw a helmet into the distance. Legolas stared at him in shock; he had never seen him like that. He stared at the ground.
Aragorn began to crawl on hand and knee, Ello stood and brushed off her jeans, and went to stand behind him. "What is it?" she sniffed in voice sounding like the inside of a cave, empty, hopeless.
"A hobbit lay here. And the other." He moved forward. "Their hands were tied." He stood and crouched, following what to the others were only lines and trenches, not deep enough to be clearly seen, meaningless. He picked up a sawn piece of rope. "Their bonds were cut. They fled the battle, and ran into the forest. And they were followed."
"Fangorn." Gimli shuddered. "What madness drove them in there?"
"Horses are like elephants from this height," murmured Ello, her eyes again shining with hope. "They must have been terrified, by that visible and not, if it was as dark as my vision was."
Pippin was tired, so very, very tired. He and Merry had run all night, deep into the forest. The deranged orc was possibly still behind them, and they were hopelessly lost, far from the Shire, and Frodo and Sam. What were they up to? Had they got away, and if they had, was Sam with Frodo or Aragorn?
"Merry," he whispered, desperate to ease some part of his fear. "Have we lost him?"
"I don't know, Pip." Merry replied in a horse voice- they had not eaten or drank for three days. For Pippin it had been a living hell, captured by orcs, far from Strider and Frodo, starved. "I think we have more likely lost ourselves."
"What are those strange noises, Merry?"
"The trees."
"What!"
"Remember, Pip, back in the Shire, those tales about Fangorn forest, that something in the water that makes the trees grow so tall, and enables them to talk
"Oi! You! Come back here; let me rip your guts out!" A voice came from behind them, the orc, less than thirty feet away, and brandishing a wickedly sharp knife.
"Run Pippin run!" yelled Merry, covering Pippin's back as they raced through the trees.
Hand on, thought Merry. Trees! Orcs can't climb! We can.
"Pip!" He hissed. "Climb a tree."
Pippin scrambled up the nearest tree without question. He had learned that if someone told you to do something then it was best to do what you told, because if you didn't it would probably get you hurt, or worse.
Merry scrambled up behind him. "I think we've; ahhh!"
"Merry!" Pippin yelled as his best friend fell out of view. Merry shuffled backwards in an awkward sitting position as the orc advanced. "Help!" Pippin cried. "Help, help! Merry!" Pippin turned back to the tree; and it blinked.
"Ahhhh!" Pippin let go of the tree and fell with flailing hands, but the tree moved one hand-like branch and caught him.
"Hmm, little orc, what are you doing?" he asked Pippin in a slow, calm voice.
Meanwhile Merry was still shuffling away from the orc, who was the only one oblivious to the moving tree.
"He, he, he! Just gonna take a small bite-ahhh!" the orc was squashed by the large foot of the tree. Pippin came to his senses, "Run, Merry, run!" he cried.
Merry was unwilling to leave Pippin, but what could he do against a tree? He was only a hobbit! He scuttled to his feet, but before he could stagger away the tree had grabbed him, too. The tree began to squeeze and Pippin gave a choked cry of pain and fear.
"Well, little orcs-"
"We're not orcs! We're hobbits!" Merry cried.
"Hobbits? Never heard of them." The tree's voice was little more than a sigh.
"Really? Hobbits, Halflings perhaps, maybe you have heard of Halflings?" Pippin asked through a clenched jaw.
"Hmm, no. Sounds like orc mischief to me."
"We're not orcs!" Merry cried together. Then Pippin added timidly, "Merry, don't encourage it. It's a tree!"
"Tree! I am no tree! I am an Ent, the oldest thing on Middle Earth. Some call me Fangorn, but most call me Treebeard. What may I call you, little orcs?"
"We-re not-" Merry began hotly, but then thought better of it. "I am Merry, Merry Brandybuck, and he is Pippin Took! And we. Are. Not. ORCS!"
"Well, the White Wizard will know."
"The, White Wizard?" Pippin asked squeakily.
"Saruman." Merry whispered darkly.
Treebeard dropped them at the feet of a tall shining figure cloaked in white. With fear devouring his heart, Pippin looked up at the figures face, and when the wizard opened his mouth, all went black.
Frodo and Sam were tired. Sméagol just ran on and on, but they were getting nowhere. Sam could hear Ello's voice in his head; you'll go nowhere if you don't try. Although sometimes you go nowhere even if you do.
Well, that's true, thought Sam. We've been at this for days now, and we're still stuck in this infernal maze of rocks.
"Oi, Stinker," He caught Frodo's eye and sighed. "Fine Sméagol, then how much further have we got to go in here?"
"Not long hobbitses, come, come. Follow good Sméagol. Yes, Sméagol always helps always helps."
"Yes, good Sméagol." Frodo encouraged. "Why do you always do that?" He asked Sam. "Run him down all the time."
"Because, that's what he is Mr. Frodo. There's no turning back for him."
"What do you know about it?" Frodo snapped. "Nothing, NOTHING!"
Sam walked forward angrily and Frodo blinked rapidly. "I'm sorry, Sam. I don't know why I said that."
"I do." Sam said. "It's that ring. I've seen you. You can't keep your eyes off it."
"I have to help him, Sam." Frodo pleaded sadly.
"Why?"
"Because I have to believe he can come back." Frodo murmured. "You're right; the ring is taking me Sam, and I have to believe that I can come back."
"What happens when you die?" Ello asked Gimli. Legolas listened intently, and even Aragorn paused from looking at tracks.
"How do I know? I'm not dead!" Gimli said indignantly. Ello laughed.
"That's not what I meant. Don't you have any ideas here, about what happens when you die?"
"You sleep. That's about it." Gimli huffed. "It is not all it's cracked up to be."
"You, Aragorn, Legolas?" Legolas shook his head, but Aragorn replied, "There are stories among men that the spirit goes to the sacred hall of the great kings, if the soul is strong." He shrugged.
"Oh." Ello was silent for while.
"What do you believe?" Legolas asked her.
"Me?" She sighed and looked at the sky. "I think there is a heaven for the souls who do well in life, for the sake of the others, and those who are sorry when they do wrong. For good people. But a hell for those who do evil. They will burn, and suffer torment for all eternity."
They travelled for another day, but it began to get too hot for them, and stuffy under the trees. The woods became hostile, and thorns seemed to spring out of nowhere, especially when Gimli had his hands clasped around his axe. Once a very sharp thorn dug deep into Ello's leg, and she tugged away, ripping her jeans in two, with five and a half whole inches of leg showing above the knee, a very disrespectful thing on Middle Earth. To make matters worse, she had left most of her clothes on the bank of the great river to lighten her pack, and the exact same thing happened seconds later to her other leg.
She glanced at Aragorn who just said; "Do you have anything longer than that top?" He asked. "A nightgown, even?" She nodded. It was the lightest thing in her bag. She took her bag off her back and slid of the back of the horse.
"I'll catch up." She said and the others dutifully turned and commanded the horses to walk slowly on, careful not to leave earshot. She quickly slipped of her dirty top, and pulled out a thin nightgown. But to her dismay she saw that unlike the clothes she was wearing; it hadn't shrunk. So she pulled out another, a short-sleeved dress top. She found it was level with her ankles, so that it looked like an (almost) adequate dress. She put the nightgown back in the bag, and pulled out a rope-belt and tied it around her waist. Then she shouldered her pack and leapt through the trees. She reached her companions. She jumped onto the horse in front of Aragorn and brushed herself down trying to make herself respectable, or as respectable as a child from Middle Earth should.
"Not bad." Aragorn grinned, ruffling her hair. "Now, let's see what mischief Pippin is causing, shall we?"
The horses leapt quicker threw the trees, but the thorns grew tall, tall enough to snare Legolas and Aragorn's arms, which of course was a nightmare for Ello and Gimli, whose faces looked as if they had been dragged headfirst through barbed wire.
"Curse this forest!" Gimli shouted. "The gnarled trees and confounded thorns!"
A low groan sounded, and Aragorn scolded Gimli. "They have feelings, my friend."
"The Elves began it." Legolas murmured in a dreamlike voice. "Waking up the trees, teaching them to talk."
"But we'll never find those poor hobbits in this awful-y nice forest." Gimli complained.
"We may yet, Gimli. Patience." Legolas sighed. A few hours later even Aragorn was losing hope. The moon was high in the sky, and having not slept for days, Ello was dozing peacefully against the horse's neck.
"Aragorn!" Legolas hissed, and the horses reared, throwing all but Ello, who had woken and clamped her hands around the horse's neck tightly.
"What," Aragorn asked watching Ello who blinked and looked ahead with a look that screamed fear. "What do you see, Legolas, Ello?"
"The White Wizard." Legolas said.
"Do not let him speak! He will put a spell on us. Attack!" Aragorn cried.
The Wizard was soon in everyone's view though his face was shining and unrecognisable, and he brushed away arrow after arrow from Legolas' bow, Gimli's axe fell out of his hands as did Aragorn's sword.
"Well met, my friends, well met I say. You track two hobbits, don't you?" said Saruman's voice.
"What have you done to them?" Gimli cried.
"Merry and Pippin met someone they did not expect, does that comfort you?"
"Who are you? Show yourself, are you Saruman!" Aragorn cried.
"Yes, you may say I am Saruman. Or rather, Saruman as he should have been." And then his voice changed, and merged into a very familiar voice. "And again, Legolas, well met I say!" and his face shimmered into view. A face so familiar and unexpected that Ello fainted and fell of the horse onto the suddenly soft bracken beneath her.
It was Gandalf.