Queen of the Rings

Chapter 2.1

Hobbits tend to live in little cottages under hills, oddly like barrow mounds, with round doors and grassy roofs pierced by angular chimneys. Carfax stopped to sniff the air as I picked out the shape of a corpse among the grasses beside the lane. In death, they looked like children.

Beren turned over the body to reveal a wretched face, frozen in pain. A middle-aged hobbit in plain but comfortable dress had a bloodless hole in the vest over his heart, the edges blackened as if by fire. I knelt to examine the wound, and as soon as I touched the skin I knew what had transpired.

"A shadow passed by this way," Beren said, watching the road.

"It was hunting," I agreed, and flung myself atop of Carfax. "Follow me as best you can!"

I urged the horse forward and she sprang into a gallop, her hooves as light as the moment before we found this tragedy. That hobbit had been killed by a wraith blade, tool of the Nazgul, which meant that Frodo and his ring were in mortal peril. How many of the Nine had ridden upon an unprotected Shire? There were more little folk strewn along the path as we raced to Bag End, Bilbo's old home left to Frodo in his absence. Doors and cottages were shattered, smoldering like untended hearths. Carfax leapt over an overturned wagon, produce spilled into the dirt. At the center of the Shire was a great standing stone, blackened as if it were a corrupted wound.

Beren was well behind me, vanished among the the hills and rows, when I came in sight of Bag End. It was not burning or broken, at least, but a black rider held still before its gate as if waiting for an invitation. The Nazgul were nothing in daylight but a black cloak upon a blacker steed, horses that were bred in a condition of drugged nightmare so that they could stand the touch of the wraiths. Carfax snorted and danced to a stop some paces from the abomination, and the dark horse did not deign to notice her.

The wraith held a sword in one waxy hand, and a dagger in the other rested on his lap. It was the dagger that was the more dangerous of the two. Its bite, even a small one, was enough to devour the life of a mortal in twisted agony. There was nothing more painful than having one's soul cursed and remade as a slave to the Dark One.

"Elf girl, you are too laaaaate." The voice of the wraith was the sound of water spilled from a kettle into a campfire, hot steam and the diminishing of light.

"You stand at a barred gate," I said. "Frodo lives."

"Death is a process." The wraith made no motion, but its dark steed knew its mind and rounded on me with deliberate slowness. "You are welcome to watch, princcccessss." There was nothing under its hood but a pale, cerous grave mask.

"Where are your companions?" I asked.

"Too weak, but they grow stronger. It was a day's labor to kill the Shire, one by one by one. The little folk struggled so. They ssstill ssssstruggle."

Did that mean the other Ring Wraiths were not yet able to manifest to do the bidding of Sauron? The rider before me could be none other than the Witch King of Angmar, called their Black Captain, the foremost of the Nine, for he showed no fear of riding alone in the daylight. I breathed deeply of the evening air to maintain my composure. Evening already? Surely the sun was moving in haste. When night came, would he still be barred entry to Bag End? A quick glance to the hobbit hole revealed it to be locked and shuttered. At least Frodo knew he was in danger, though little good such means would do when the Witch King was ready.

"Why do you tarry, Captain?" In my mind I reviewed what knowledge I had of the wraiths, their weaknesses, what might be done against them with voice and will alone. It was a waiting game for the rider as well, and he seemed willing to play.

"The Grey Wanderer." It was a wonder that steam did not issue from the hood with those words. "He warded this place against us, but it cannot hold."

So Mithrandir's suspicions had led to some action, at least. He had not left Bilbo defenseless for fifty years, even if the Shire was defenseless. The nature of the ring was still uncertain. There was only one wraith here to capture it, and Sauron was known to collect all rings of power, lesser and greater. It could even be one of the seven dwarf rings, having been discovered in the company of dwarves and used primarily since to amass wealth for its owner. That was precisely what the dwarf rings were said to have done. Word of a ring in the Shire could have easily spread when Bilbo used it to escape his own going away party some years before. What would the old hobbit say if he knew his antics had likely cost the lives and souls of every hobbit in Hobbiton? No, it did not have to be the One Ring in that quaint house under a hill, but the idea that it could be gnawed at my belly.

"What is so important," I asked, "to draw you here alone? You are vulnerable in the light."

An arrow whistled its arc from down the hill, and impacted harmlessly in the Witch King's shoulder. He scarcely stirred, but I felt a spike of spiritual power travel down to the tip of his sword and twitch.

Beren had arrived, arranged himself beside a chimney from a cottage on a lower mound, and fired the shot. Another arrow was already leaving his bow when the twitch of a distant blade caused the string to snap. The wraith received the second arrow in his abdomen without comment, his horse turning so they could gaze down at Beren.

"Is he new?" asked the Witch King of Angmar.


"He is," I said, and raised one hand toward the falling sun. "But I remember that two great lanterns once lifted our world into eternal light, until Morgoth the Shameful broke them in a fit of envy." The energy of the sun drew around my fingertips into a white gold skein, a precious bauble that I offered to the Witch King as a gift. His mount eased backwards.

"It is our place as the first children to remember such things," I said, "and the place of the shadow to flee from them."
The wraith lifted his sword in a respectful salute.

"The field is yours, Evenstar, but night beckons." The Witch King wheeled, and a horrid shriek issued from his mount as they sped down the path. The arrow shafts fell from him, disintegrating. Mortal weapons cannot pierce the Nazgul and survive. Beren bounded to me when the threat was gone, and the power outlining my hand faded to nothing.

"That was incredible," Beren said.

"It is but an echo of what our forbears could do," I sighed. "And he knew my name, that is a bad omen. What else does the Shadow know?"

"We can ask the hobbits." Beren grinned at me. Young elves were insufferable.

The round door of Bag End opened before us as I set Carfax to grazing in the yard. The hobbits had been watching us through cracks in the jamb. The face that greeted us was wide and soft to the point of obesity, and there was a vacancy to his expression that suggested the spiritual purity of a child. He gaped at me, making a clicking noise deep in his throat that could not grow into a word.

"Come away from the door Sam, let them in."

The hobbit, Sam, scuttled away into a side hall. Beren and I stooped to enter the hobbit hole. It was cozy for a hobbit, cramped for an elf, over furnished and over stuffed with pillows and shelves of Knick knacks that were doubtless meaningful in the context of Hobbiton but as strange to me as the mind of the Dark Lord. Sam beckoned us into a sitting room where a fire was banked in a small hearth, mostly coals burning gloomily through their last hours.

Frodo, was sitting in a too large chair stuffed with goose down. His face was hidden, as his gaze was directed entirely on the object in his hand, more brass than gold. A ring of power.

"We have to go from here," I said. "The Nazgul will return in full power when night comes."

"Uh..." Sam said, "did you hear her, master?"

"I heard her." Frodo's voice was low and strained. "I know we have to go." But he didn't rise, or so much as take his eyes from the ring, which was hung on a chain that draped across his fingers.

"Put it away," I said.

"I...I don't think I can. When the rider was out there, I could hear him in my mind. He wanted me to wear the ring and bring it out to him. And the ring wanted that too, I'm sure of it." His gaze lifted, and I saw his eyes were moist blue pools, quite striking, and so wide they gave him an aspect of panic. "Where is Gandalf," he asked, "I need him."

"You'll be alright," Sam said, almost as distraught as his master. How odd to think that even beings as lowly as hobbits would have servants.

"Gandalf is away," I said, "researching that ring. But my doubts are fading every moment."

Beren clapped Sam on the shoulder, causing him to jump out of his slippers. "Why don't you help me get you both packed for the journey?"

"J...j...journey?" Sam gasped, overwhelmed by the leonine glory of my companion.

"Yes, I'm sure you know where everything is." Beren led him away. "Your friend needs you now to do this."

When Frodo and I were alone I knelt before him. There were tears forming in his eyes.

"I'm trying," he said, "I'm really trying."

"It's alright," I said. "May I help you put it back around your neck?"

He nodded, so I took it by the chain to lift it from his hand. As I did so, the ring seemed to jump of its own accord, and I felt it brush against my knuckles.

Time stopped.