A/N: Many of you guessed quite correctly as to the voice in the darkness. My compliments. Either your minds are very quick or you've read the books and watched the movies enough to know how the slimy creature talks. However, this is not one of those stories where canon characters just randomly appear merely for the heck of things. I did not intend for Gollum to be in this story. I did not want him to. He literally melted out of the blackness and threw fish at me until I let him in. I do sincerely apologize for subjecting you to reading a fic in which his terrible (and fishy) presence exists.

That is all. You may read on. :)


Chapter 6

Faramir felt Éowyn start next to him and covered her mouth with his hand lest she should scream. Éowyn had not at all been intending to scream (she tended to remain silent when startled) but the hand over her mouth frightened her more than the voice. She clawed it away…and then felt sheepish as she turned her gaze upward and saw that it was Faramir's face above her (but only barely just, for it was so dark!).

"Where are they, my love?" hissed the voice in the blackness. "We will find them—yes, we will find them."

Feeling a little more than nervous, Faramir fingered the hilt of his sword with his left hand (of all the times for his right arm to be broken!) and said clearly, "Who are you? And what do you want with us?"

"What do we wants, he asks, my love. What do we wants?"

"Gollum," Amrothos blurted out suddenly.

Éowyn and Faramir both turned to stare, and there came a startled hiss from the mysterious voice.

"What?" Faramir asked. Éowyn grabbed his wrist, yanked his hand away from her mouth, and proceeded to glare at him.

"It's a creature Father told us about once—something the Rangers see in the woods," Amrothos whispered with a fearful glance around. "A grey, skulking creature that was once a sort of halfling. He talks as though there were more than one of him in his head, and calls himself 'my precious' and 'my love'."

Actually, Amrothos had heard it around a campfire, a series of bloodcurdling stories that the hardened rangers or soldiers told to make the younger ones lie awake in their beds for an extra hour or so (which, though he would never admit it, had happened to Amrothos one night or six.). A few heartbeats of silence followed. Éowyn, of course, had never heard of such a creature—nor had Faramir, except by a passing comment or word in jest. The idea that that thing—Gollum—was there in the darkness was enough to make each of their blood's run cold.

"You…in the darkness," Faramir began. His voice was trembling. "Are you Gollum?"

"What has it got in its pocketses, my love?" replied the voice scornfully. "He stole it from us. What do we wants? We wants the precious! Must find the—"

And then the voice cut off—like a tap that's been turned off, or a candle that's whiffed out. Then it began again in a terrified whine.

"He sees us—he knows we're here! He knows we does not have the precious, my love!"

There was a shout from somewhere further away in the blackness—a human sounding shout.

"'e went this way! Past the rocks. I'd bet my life on it."

The creature called Gollum let out a shriek. Suddenly the sound of rocks falling reached the three young peoples' ears, and a long, bony hand came out of the darkness and struck Amrothos (who was holding the torch) full in the face.

"Out with the light," the creature wailed. "Out…before he sees…"

Faramir drew his sword and swung it in the general direction of the beast. Amrothos stumbled back with a bloody lip, stunned by the suddenness of the blow and breathing fast for sheer terror, and Éowyn grabbed for the torch.

"Oi! This way—I 'eard voices!" came another voice from far away, though this one was louder than the one that had spoken before.

"They will find us, precious," sobbed Gollum. "And then they will make us weep."

The sound of running feet reached the ears of Éowyn, Faramir, and Amrothos. It grew louder with every second that passed, and at last Faramir whispered, "Put out the torch! We must go further back!"

Éowyn obeyed quickly (if somewhat reluctantly) and Faramir dragged the younger two back until they hit a wall of solid rock. A dim light appeared by where they'd first heard Gollum's voice (the creature seemed to have fled already), and then it rounded a corner and they were blinking in the light of a torch the size of a small tree.

"Don't move," Faramir breathed to the others. "Don't even breathe."

He knew, as all Rangers know, that if you remain still there's a good chance you won't be noticed at all. Éowyn and Amrothos obeyed as best they could—though neither could manage not to breathe.

"Quick, that way!" shouted the young-ish sounding voice of the man who was carrying the torch. "We mustn't let them see the beasts—Mordeth will have our heads!"

Mordeth, thought Éowyn with a shiver. It sounded too much like Mordor to be anything but evil. Suddenly, a cold, clammy hand grabbed her arm from behind and dragged her back. Éowyn really did scream this time, and there was utter silence in the wake of the shrilly piercing sound.

"Blast," muttered Amrothos. "They'd have to be deaf to not hear that!"

As Éowyn struggled against the cold, bony fingers that clutched her arm, she felt another hand, warm and solid and friendly, clasp hers and draw her away from the thing in the darkness.

"It's all right," Faramir whispered. "Just stay calm. Nothing's going to hurt us."

Éowyn swallowed a whimper.

"It's got my arm. That horrible, nasty Gollum thing. At least, I think that's what it is."

Faramir's fingers grasped her's more tightly. Still struggling against Gollum's grasp, Éowyn drew closer to her friend.

"Quick," whispered the rasping voice of the creature in the darkness, "they mustn't find the precious. Mustn't tell them we're here, precious. They'll kill us until we tell them about Bagginses, and Shire. Don't let them find us, my love. They will make us betray the precious!"

There was such a doleful sound in the creature's pleading such that Éowyn almost pitied it—even as she twisted her arm away from the sticky grip. There were voices in the tunnel, voices that were coming nearer.

"Thought I heard someone scream," said a low voice, and then light shone full in the faces of Faramir, Éowyn, and Amrothos. The three young people blinked as the torchlight approached. Faramir's eyes adjusted more quickly than the others', and the sight that reached his eyes was not a pleasant one.

Three men stood in the tunnel before them. Two of them bore large torches that could've done well as giant matchsticks. The third had his sword drawn, and the expression on his face was swiftly shifting from surprise to a smirking leer.

"Well, now. What have we here? Three young cubs that have lost their way beneath the mountains?"

"The mountains?" Despite her fear, Éowyn was very confused. There were no mountains nearby—save the ones to the south and west, the ones that bordered Gondor. But no matter how near the mountains were, they certainly weren't beneath them. They were just under (or perhaps in the hill beneath) Edoras.

"Yes, mountains, cub, unless ye're so lost ye cannot even tell ye're underground!" the man chortled back. Then he paused. "'ey Grum—go a bit nearer with that torch, so's I can see 'em better."

The man called Grum did as he was asked, and Faramir's hand tightened on the hilt of his sword, as did Amrothos's. Éowyn would've grabbed for her's, but she'd either left it in the stable or it had dropped into the blackness when she'd fallen. Blast. Just the sort of place when she would need her mother's weapon, and what did she do but lose it!

"Well, I'll be bound," muttered the man with the sword after squinting at their faces. He was short and stout and he held the sword as if he meant to use it as a club. "It's a gel." (This was the way the man pronounced 'girl'.) "Yes…a gel and two young lads. Tell me, cubs, what be ye doin' here so far from yer den?"

Éowyn got the feeling that the man had either been raised by bears, or spent a lot of time with them. Amrothos thought he was likely a bear-hunter. Faramir had a feeling that it was mere bluster and show that the man had picked up just to intimidate those who couldn't recognize it for what it was.

The three exchanged a glance, and then Éowyn spoke the words that neither of the boys really wanted to say.

"We're lost, sir. We fell into…a hole, and we can't get back up."

The man stared at her for a long moment. There was a greedy evil that sparkled in his beady black eyes that made Faramir and Amrothos' hands tighten on their sword or short sword, respectively. Éowyn, having no weapon, had to be satisfied with the knowledge that the others were well armed.

"Lost, eh, gel? Then we're in much the same boat, ye three cubs and my men." The man turned and stared at the flaming torch for a long moment before he continued. "We first entered this dark realm in Lossarnach by the end of the river Celos, by way of a tunnel into the Ered Nimrais. We have stumbled beneath the mountain in search of light for nigh on a month now."

"Lossarnach?" exploded Amrothos before either Éowyn or Faramir could stop him. "You mean the passage is that long?"

There was a pregnant silence that followed as the three men stared at them with renewed curiosity, and Amrothos realized what he'd said and began muttering words under his breath, words about which his father would've had something to say.

"We are far from Lossarnach, then?" the short man asked, licking his lips. "What lands are above? Tell us, my young cubs. Do some poor lost men a favor, won't ye?"

Éowyn gathered up the courage to glare at the man ferociously, and spat the words, "Don't pretend ignorance. We know you're the horse-thieves we've been looking for, and if you try to deny it, we'll…we'll..."

She let the words trail off because it occurred to her at that moment that they didn't really have anything with which to threaten the men. However, the men did not look worried—just quite earnestly confused.

"'orse-thieves? Now that's an idea," guffawed the man called Grum. "We'd not be so sore of foot had we some 'orses to ride."

"They know the way out," growled the other one, the large man who was holding one of the torches. "Make 'em show us the way, Farothul. Before we go blind for lack of light. These is the last torches we've got—unless you've got some hid in your pack. We're at the end of the trail. Make 'em take us to the light."

Farothul—the man with the sword, it seemed—wetted his lips again and stepped forward. The three young people edged away.

"Now looky, cubs," whispered the small man. "We won't 'urt ye—long as ye help us, that is. We're lost—that's true enough. And when our torches are gone, we'll be worse off than creatures that wander blindly through the blackness."

"You mean like Gollum?" asked Amrothos. The men stared at him, and with an apologetic glance at Éowyn and Faramir, the young man began his quiet cursing again.

"What'd ye know of Gollum?" asked Farothul in a quiet, dangerous voice. His grip on the sword tightened visibly. "Speak quickly, cubs. I will 'ave it from ye if I have to kill ye to know."

Although Faramir and Amrothos had no qualms whatsoever about mentioning the creature that had attacked them from the darkness, Éowyn felt again the little jab of pity she'd felt at the pitiful thing's voice. Before the others could speak, Éowyn took another step back and replied, "Nothing. We've heard the stories around the campfire, of course, but naught else."

When the men kept staring at her, she added innocently, "Why? Are you looking for him?"

"As a matter of fact," said the short man, taking another step toward them, a grim glower on his ugly features, "we are."

To be continued...