Chapter 1: The Dark Forest
It all happened so quickly. I didn’t have any time to react, no time to think or to even breathe. It happened after the flooding of Isenguard. Pippin and I were walking along, patrolling the area for salvage. Gimli, Aragorn, and Legolas were behind us on the meadows, scouting the area for any surviving orcs. I walked a bit ahead of Pippin, sloshing along in the stomach-deep water and laughing at the song that Pippin was muttering to himself.
“The River goes ever on and on,
Down from the Tower where it began.
Now far ahead the stream has gone,
And I must follow if I can.
Pursuing it with sopping feet,
Until it joins some larger lake.
Where many trib-u-taries meet,
And whither then? I cannot say.”
“That’s quite a little ditty you’re singing there, Pippin. It’s very clever.” Pippin laughed and sloshed up next to me.
“Well, I’m rather fond of it…though I suppose old Bilbo would give me a good knock on the head for it. I don’t suppose he’d ever forgive me if he found out that I mangled his lovely poems for my own amusement.” Pippin winked in my direction and started a new song, louder and more lively than before.
“Ho! Old Sar-u-man, old Sar-u-millo,
Down through old Isenguard, flowing drown the traitor!
He’s an ugly lying sneak; he’s an old rotter!
Swim, old Saruman, but the Ents move faster!”
“I’m sure old Tom Bombadil would forgive you for that one, Pip!”
He and I burst into peals of laughter. Pippin always was one for song making, whether the words were his own or just some he’d rearranged. He was especially good at making new songs out of old ones. We both began singing his Saruman song at the top of our voices as we entered a grove of trees. It was dark, uncommonly dark to my mind, and altogether foreboding. Pippin, however, didn’t seem to notice. He just kept trotting along, not heeding the ominous trees stretching their gnarled fingers black against the cloudy sky. A dread I had no name for settled upon my heart.
“Pippin?”
“Yes, Merry?”
“It’s getting dark. Maybe…maybe we should start heading back.”
Pippin turned round, noting the look of anxiety on my face with big eyes full of concern.
“All right, Merry. Let’s cut through the trees here. I think this is a shortcut.”
I sighed. Pippin was famous in Tuckborough and Buckland for his “shortcuts.” One time he took a shortcut home from the pub and was lost in the woods for three days.
“Pippin,” I began, but he was already making his way through the underbrush. He was awfully fast, and I quickly lost sight of him. The gathering dark and steadily pouring rain made it hard to keep sight of him, even though he wasn’t far ahead of me.
“Pippin! Pippin, where are you? Pippin!” I demanded to the wind. A faint reply fell on my ears. Whether it was a trick of the wind whipping round me or a deceit by my own ears I do not know, but I thought I heard a muffled cry. I sprinted ahead, the rain lashing around my face and neck. Panic began to well up in my chest.
“PIPPIN!”
I slammed into him with a start and we fell flailing into the mud. Pippin sat up, dazed and shaking, a queer look on his muddy face.
“Peregrin Took! There you are! Where’d you get off to? We don’t know these woods, Pippin! You shouldn’t dart off like that, and another thing–” He clamped a grimy hand over my mouth and shushed me hastily. He looked round, then leaned into my face conspiratorially. He shivered in the cold.
“What’s wrong, Pippin? Why are you trembling?” I whispered. His voice was hoarse and shaking as he answered.
“I…I saw some…some orcs,” he stuttered, the horror of our time with the Uruk-Hai flitting across his face, “they’re about a half-mile ahead…or at least, they were.”
The thought of being in the hands of those foul folk once more made my blood run cold. We sat motionless in the dark, straining our ears, listening for any sign of the enemy. For a while, the stillness remained unbroken in a heavy silence, an awful, overbearing silence. Instantly I thought back to the endless dark and quiet of Moria, and I felt the air drawing uncomfortably close about us once more. A branch moaned in the wind, and Pip clutched my sleeve. Slowly, in a low, almost barely audible tone, a deep-voiced song blew past our ears. The voice was furious and gravelly, echoing about us in the sinister orcish tongue. Pippin leapt to his feet and pulled me up, hastily whispering an escape route into my ear. We were to run together back in the direction we came, making full use of all the stealth that our race and stature leant us. If we could just get close enough, we could whistle in that shrill signal whistle that Gandalf had taught us, and he and the others would protect us.
We took off, dashing desperately through the rain as quickly and quietly as we could. Thunder rumbled overhead as we darted between the trees. My heart was pounding as I ran, listening to the rain and the steady puffing of Pippin beside me. The lightening flashed, giving an eerie illumination to his cheerful face.
“We’re almost there, Merry! Once we get beyond the edge of the forest, we’ll be safe!”
I felt my heart lift within me as I heard these words, and a new strength born of fear and hope renewed my limbs and I ran faster, pulling a few paces ahead of Pippin. Just then a huge black orc leapt out of the foliage, screeching like a banshee. I cried out in surprise and fell backward into the mud. The orc towered over me, glowering menacingly. He was battered and bleeding, obviously mad with rage, but to my dismay he was armed. He drew a huge serpentine dagger. It gleamed coldly with a sinister light. For a moment the orc stood motionless, his red eyes blazing at me in the dark. He was boring a hole right through me with his gaze. A malicious grin spread across his grotesque face, and my heart quailed.
“Halfling,” he hissed, the word oozing out of his disgusting mouth like poison from an adder’s fangs. He put a huge, crushing boot upon my chest and pressed me hard against the cold ground. I screamed in terror and pain and the orc laughed the screeching laugh of a wild beast, unaffected by thoughts of compassion as he considered ending the life of his prey. He lifted the dagger high above his head, preparing to bring it down deep within the chambers of my heart. I closed my eyes and shuddered, my short but eventful life flashing before my eyes. Images of my parents and Buckland, Frodo, Bilbo, the Fellowship, and especially Pippin flooded my mind. Pippin! Where was Pippin? Was he captured as well, or had he already faced a fate worse than mine in the dark forest? I involuntarily opened my eyes to look for him. The orc was just about to skewer me when something small and fast leapt from the shadows onto his back.
“Pippin!” I heard myself shout, delighted that he was safe and terrified at what he was doing.
“Oi! Get away from him, you ugly blighter! Leave him alone, or so help me I’ll yank your filthy head off!”
He wrapped his fingers around the orc’s greasy hair and pulled with all his might. The orc howled in rage, slashing the air furiously with his dagger. He took one great hand and crushed it around Pippin’s waist, yanking him off his head and hurling him hard against a tree. Pippin’s head slammed against the trunk with a sickening crack and he fell still.
“Pippin! Oh no…Pippin!” I screamed, terrified. The orc lumbered over to him and lifted a huge boulder off the ground and over his head. Pippin lay still, eyes closed, a trickle of blood sliding down his forehead. That monster was going to crush him! I screamed a battle cry and ran forward, slashing at the back of the orc’s thick legs with my sword.
“Get away! Away from him, you abomination! Back!”
The orc’s black blood spattered on my face as I sliced him with all the strength I had. The fell thing bellowed and grabbed me, digging his sharp claws into my throat as I began to choke. He squeezed tighter, and I felt my lungs beginning to starve for air. My head felt light, and I looked dizzily down into the orc’s eyes. They were bright with malice. Just as everything was going dark, the orc dropped me gasping into the muck. Then he kicked me hard in the gut, and a wave of nausea swept over me. My head was throbbing now, pounding with each beat of my heart as I struggled to breathe. The orc brandished his dagger once more. I scrambled trying to get up, to get away, but it was no use. I was too sick and wobbly to do anything but sit and wait for my doom. The orc lifted his dagger high, and his yellowed fangs glinted in a sinister grin. Time slowed to a crawl. He started to bring it down, down, down, ever neared to my chest. In seconds it would pierce my heart, and I would leave this world, and everything and everyone I cared for, behind forever. “No…” I gasped, and even as I spoke the word I saw something flitting through the shadows out of the corner of my eye. A blur of motion and color raced toward us. I heard a scream tear from my throat as Pippin dove in front of me. The dagger pierced deep into his lower chest, and a small, shocked cry came from his sweet bow mouth. A torrent of emotion washed over every one of his features. Shock, fear, pain, anguish, defeat, sadness–they were all there, all moving and blending on Pippin’s stunned face. The orc slid the dagger out of him in one swift motion. Pippin gave another weak cry and stared as his own blood dripped from the dagger’s cruel point. The orc laughed as Pip placed a hand over his wound and staggered back. Time lurched back into its normal pace as Pippin locked eyes with me and grasped feebly for my hand.
“Merry…” he gasped in a frightened tone I hadn’t heard since he was just a little hobbit. Tears sprang into my eyes when I heard it.
“Oh, my poor, poor Pippin!”
“M-Merry, I…I…” He couldn’t finish his thought. Pip’s knees buckled, and he fell heavily into my arms. He gazed up at me, a dim cloud gathering in his once bright eyes. His face was ashen and filthy. Blood, sweat, mud, and tears, my tears, slid down his pale cheeks. His chest heaved with each labored, shaking breath. He took his free hand and clasped mine tightly, his knuckles white against my dirty hand.
“Merry,” he wheezed, the strength fading from his body like the dim light at sunset. “Merry, I–I…I’m so very sorry!” I looked down at him in shock.
“Sorry? Whatever for?” A single tear rolled down his cheek.
“It’s all m-my fault. If we hadn’t taken this shortcut, I’d n-never have…you could’ve been killed! I shouldn’t…”
“Shh, shh. No, Pippin! None of this is your fault. Don’t ever think any of this is your fault!”
“B-but I…I…”
“Shh, Pippin. Don’t try to speak. Conserve your energy, my dear foolish little cousin. Rest now. Soon Gandalf will find us and patch you up, and you and I will be back to romping about the countryside in no time. You’ll see!”
“B-but Merry! The orc!” The orc! I’d forgotten all about the orc. The only thing I’d been able to think about was Pippin. I looked up just in time to see the orc, who had been busy celebrating his victory with some orc draught, shriek and fall to the ground in a stinking heap. A single yellow-shafted arrow stuck out of the base of his spine.
“Look! D’you see that, Pippin? That’s one of Legolas’ arrows! They can’t be too far off!” Pippin tried gallantly to smile for me. I wanted to believe that Legolas and company weren’t too far off, but a nagging doubt in the back of my mind kept reminding me that Legolas could see and shoot up to six miles in this weather. It might be another hour or so before they reached us…and I wasn’t sure Pippin had that kind of time. He was already going cold, and I pulled my cloak around him as tight as I dared. I looked down at his hand and the ever-widening crimson stain spreading out from around his palm. His hand shook as he covered it.
“Here Pippin, let me see,” I said, automatically reverting back to the same soothing voice I’d used when he was a lad with skinned elbows and knees. How I wished with all my heart that this was only a skinned knee, that I could bandage him up and make all the pain go away with a hug and a peppermint sweet. Pippin lifted his hand obediently, a trusting look in his glassy eyes. The wound was grievous, deep and dark, a cavernous crimson hole in his chest. How would the smallest and youngest child of the Took and Brandybuck clans ever survive something like this?
“Does it hurt, Pippin?” I asked stupidly, wincing at my idiotic question. Of course it hurts, you ninny! To my surprise, however, Pippin didn’t seem to take any notice of my foolishness at all.
“N-not really, Merry. It doesn’t hurt all that much,” said an obviously hurting (and an obviously lying) Pippin. He grimaced even as he spoke the words, and I could tell by his shuddering that it was killing him just to breathe. He was trying to be brave for me. I stroked his matted, sopping curls, fighting back tears.
“Oh, Pippin…my dear, dear Peregrin…” For many long moments we sat there in silence, Pippin fighting for his life in my arms. I rocked him gently, just as I did when we were very small. I began to sing soothing nonsense, silly rhymes and lullabies from our childhood days. I looked into his eyes, drinking in all his features. He grasped my hand tighter than before, but I felt him slipping away.
“Merry…”
“Yes, Pippin?”
“I need to tell you something.”
“What…what might that be, dearest?”
“I…I,” he began, tears streaming down his cheeks. “I’m going to miss you so much–”
“Stop! Don’t say things like that, Pip! You’re going to be fine, you’ll see. Everything will be all right now…” I trailed off, a huge lump settling in my throat. Pippin smiled up at me sadly.
“I love you, Merry,” he whispered.
“I love you too, my Pippin.”
Pippin drew a shuddering breath. His heavy eyelids drooped down, and he met my eyes once more as he slipped away into a dark unconsiousness. I drew him up to me, holding him tight, shielding him from the rain. I sobbed, my heart breaking within my chest.
“PIPPIN!” I screamed to the wind, rage and hurt burning in my cheeks. The rain slashed at my face, my head spun. Then everything went dark.