Chapter Three: A Walk in the Hills

Chapter Three: A Walk in the Hills

I would have cursed myself for my stupidity, but there wasn't the time.

I could not yet see Orcs amid the trees, and I could hope that they had not yet noticed me, either.

I risked a hasty glance behind me. I could backtrack and make my way into the trees, but I did not know which portions of the woods around me held Orcs, and I might just end up sneaking into their midst.

The nearest outcropping of rocks was about thirty yards behind me along the shore. I might reach them before any of the Orcs caught sight of me, and from there I could slip back into the River, if necessary. Hiding has never been my favourite option, but Orcs do not generally travel in small numbers, and I had no desire to be slain by the loathsome brutes twice.

I had just formed the plan to retreat to the rocks, when a squat, burly Orc in black scale mail walked out from the trees right in front of me.

I don't know if he meant to relieve himself in the River, try to catch some fish for breakfast, or if he had an un-Orcly desire to watch the sunrise. Whatever it was, it cost him his life.

His eyes widened and his yellow-fanged mouth opened in amazement as he saw me. Before he could manage a yell, I stepped in toward him, yanking my sword from its scabbard and driving it through the Orc's throat.

I grabbed hold of him with my left hand as he sank down, hoping I could lower him to the ground without undue noise and still make my retreat before the rest of the Orcs were alerted to my presence. The plan failed. As I was lowering my first enemy, a second Orc appeared from the woods behind him.

He yelled a warning. An instant later I had dropped his fellow and swung my borrowed sword at him, lopping off his head.

Outlandish Orcish shouts rose from the woods. I heard the crashes of heavy bodies rushing through leaves and undergrowth. A conch shell horn voiced its mournful cry. I saw dark shapes moving between the trees.

All hope of escape irretrievably lost, I yelled "Gondor!" at the top of my lungs, and charged to meet them.

As I ran at them, it occurred to me that at least the sword hadn't yet fallen apart.

The next Orc and I nearly smashed into each other. He was swinging a battleaxe around his head, but before he could bring it down on me I sliced my sword diagonally across his torso, almost splitting him in two.

Two more Orcs were running toward me. The one a few feet ahead of his comrade had a spear levelled at my midsection, which I managed to seize hold of in my left hand and twist around, yanking him to me and spitting him on my sword.

The second of these two shouted something in their uncouth tongue and rushed me while I was still pulling my sword free from his companion. He brandished a gleaming scimitar in each hand. I shoved the corpse of his fellow into the Orc's path, then while he was stumbling backward I plunged the spear I had seized into this latest Orc's gut.

The conflict had carried me a few feet into the woods. I could not tell how many Orcs might be left, but I could still hear their shouting from among the dark, dawn-lit trees.

I saw a flash of sunlight reflected off armour, as an Orc stepped out from between two trees and let fly an arrow that whirred past me half an inch from my neck.

No, I thought. I'm not going to die like that again. I rushed the Orc archer while he was nocking a second arrow to his bow, and plunged my sword into him up to the hilt.

It took me a moment to yank the sword free from him again. Another arrow flew at me from somewhere to my right, lodging in a tree trunk behind me. Betting that I could reach this archer as well before he could fire again, I charged in the direction from which the arrow had come.

The ground sloped down abruptly into a depression in the earth. I skidded a little on the slope, dirt and dead leaves flying under my feet. Impressions flashed in on my senses: a campfire, disordered piles of bedding on the ground, and two Orcs retreating into the hollow as I stormed down the slope at them.

Half by intent and half because he was in my way and I had too much momentum to stop myself, I launched myself at the Orc who was drawing back his bow to fire at me once more. I smashed into him and bore him down to the ground. He dropped his bow and grasped hold of my sword arm, holding it away from him in a grip so strong that I feared the bones in my forearm might be about to snap.

As we struggled I heard the Orc standing beside us gasp out in the Common Tongue, "You! The warrior! But we killed you!"

I was scrabbling with my left hand to find something to use against my opponent, to make him loose his grip on my arm. My fingers closed around his arrow, fallen free of the bow when I hurled him onto the ground. The Orc snarled up at me, his foul, hot breath nearly choking me as it hit my nostrils. I felt along the arrow until I was sure where the point was, then I seized hold of the arrow and stabbed it down into his throat.

The Orc thrashed beneath me, blood bubbling from his mouth. His crushing grip fell from my sword arm, and I surged to my feet again, facing what seemed to be the last of my opponents.

He brandished a scimitar in one hand and a vicious, gleaming black dagger in the other, but he seemed almost to have forgotten that he held any weapons at all. He was staring at me in what appeared to be terror, and he insisted in choking tones, "No! You are dead!"

I cannot say that I recognised this Orc in particular, but his words were enough to reveal his identity. He had been among the Orc troops that we fought above the Falls. He might have shot some of the arrows that stole my life.

I yelled "Gondor!" again and leapt at the terrified Orc. As I hit him he fell backward into the edge of the campfire. Screeching and twisting away from the flame, he fatally turned his attention away from me, until I plunged my sword through his right arm and pinned him to the ground.

I planted myself on top of him, adding my weight to the sword that held him down. He had dropped both sword and dagger, and I took up the dagger, bringing it close to his face as I smiled down on him.

The Orc hissed again, as if he'd forgotten how to say anything else, "We killed you, warrior. You are dead."

"So I am," I grinned at him. "But I have returned, to take you back with me."

He whispered, "No."

"Tell me," I said mildly, starting to slice off chunks of skin from his neck. "What happened in the battle by the Falls? Where are my companions?"

He snarled and tried to kick up at me. I moved the dagger to place it just over his right eye.

I breathed at him, "Tell me what I wish to know, and I will kill you quickly and send you to your ancestors. But mark me. Make me wait for my answers and I will seize your soul. You will wander forever in the grey mists of the barrow world, as my slave."

The Orc gave a sobbing growl. I brought down the dagger a fraction of an inch, feeling it dig into his eyeball.

"Tell me. What happened? When the Horn of Gondor was silenced and I slew no more of you, what followed?"

He gasped out, "We took the halflings."

"Which halflings?" I snarled. "How many?"

"Two. The two who fought beside you."

"Where are they?"

"I don't know," he hissed. I twisted the dagger in his eyeball, and he squealed and repeated, in a yell, "I don't know! Cursed White Hand Isengarders. They said they must take the halflings to their master. They were ours to kill, in payment for our chief, but the Isengard bastards took them."

Chill horror raced through me at the name of Isengard. But I did not have time for horror. I forced my voice to remain steady as I asked, "Are they still alive?"

The Orc's voice was going frantic with pain. "They were – when I saw them last. The White Hands said – they had orders from their master, to kill the rest of you but take the halflings alive."

"What of the others?" I demanded. "My other companions? Tell me!"

"I don't know! I never saw them. I only saw the two halflings, I swear it!"

"Why are you here? Are there more of you?"

He sobbed. "Fought – with the Isengarders. Would not give us the halflings. Going home – to Moria. We divided our forces – for more chance of finding enemies to kill. For our chief slain in the Mine – so he does not go alone."

"Rest easy," I told him. "Your chief will not be alone." I yanked the dagger from his eye and plunged it down into his heart.

When the Orc was silent, I sat down on the ground beside his corpse. I tugged my sword from his arm, cleaning it with a handful of leaves.

Merry and Pippin had been taken. A snatch of memory came to me as I thought of it. I remembered clutching at one of the arrows that impaled my chest, and staring in despair as Merry and Pippin, still struggling, were borne away under the arms of two Orcs like squalling babes being carried off by their nurses.

The rush of anguish I had felt then came back to me as well. Merry and Pippin had been taken, and I had failed them.

I had failed them all.

I had not remembered it before, I think, because I had wanted so desperately for it not to be true. I'd wanted to hold on to hope for as long as I could, to keep hoping that Aragorn and the others had reached the two Hobbits in time.

I propelled myself to my feet and sheathed my sword. The sword had done well this morning; I would have to come up with some appropriate name for it, but at the moment I couldn't think of any.

It was time to get moving again. Time and past.

The fate of the young halflings worried me, but that was all the more reason to act swiftly, and not sit here thinking thoughts of gloom.

I glanced down at my last opponent, and had to grin as the thought occurred to me: Not every Man has the chance to avenge his own death.

The sun, rising higher over the eastern bank, glinted through the trees.

It had been a good morning thus far. I had stumbled on a nest of Orcs and still lived, and I had removed eight more of the vile beasts from our shores.

Most important, I knew now where my journey must take me next.

I looked around the hollow. I would have to be more careful. Even if these Orcs were truly the entirety of their party, there were likely more of them around. The bedding, packs and weaponry scattered about seemed only sufficient to supply around the same number as I had killed, but from what my informant had said there were probably more Moria Orcs in the vicinity, seeking victims to kill for their chieftain's entourage. These Orcs I had met must have stopped in camp for the day, to avoid travelling in the sunlight. They had probably been half asleep, but I would do well not to expect that all I might encounter would be so easy to conquer.

A cooking pot had been knocked over when my last Orc fell into the fire, and I grimaced on seeing the unidentifiable chunks of meat that spilled out of it. I ought to eat something, I knew, but I was certainly not going to touch any of the Orcs' breakfast, torn from who knew what creature's body. Svip's cooking looked appetizing by comparison.

Well, I would be heading into the lands of the Rohirrim, and likely I would run into some of their herders, or the troops who guard the borders. I had little doubt that I would find someone willing to give food to a hungry traveller. The Horselords are usually generous to wanderers through their realm, at least when the wanderer hails from Gondor.

Still, it might be days before I encountered any of them. I looked around again, and noticed a bow and a well-stocked quiver lying atop one heap of bedding. The bow is not my weapon of choice, but I can use it if I have to, and I better fancied my chances of shooting a rabbit or such creature, than of catching it with my bare hands or chasing it down with a sword.

Crossing to the Orc's bedroll, I added bow and quiver to my armament. After a moment's consideration I walked back to my late informant, and tugged the dagger from out of his heart. A brief investigation revealed the dagger's sheath on his belt, which I unfastened and removed. After cleaning the dagger I sheathed it and fastened it to my own belt, the golden belt of Lórien. I smiled as I imagined the Elves' distaste, if they knew that an Orcish blade now hung from a piece of their handiwork.

Then I climbed out of the hollow and set out through the forest, keeping my path, as close as I could reckon it, due west.

A hundred miles or so lay between me and the Entwade fords, and from there, perhaps another hundred to Isengard, where it nestled beneath the Gap of Rohan.

The journey ahead should be easy enough, I told myself. As such journeys went. The land should not be difficult. I would have some hills to scale at the first, as I climbed out from the valley of the Anduin, but after that it would be mostly flat land, crossing the plains of Entwash and Isen. I should have little trouble, so long as I kept my bearings and did not wander north into Fangorn or south into the Mouths of Entwash.

I shook my head ruefully, remembering my boasts to Lord Celeborn that I would have no difficulty leading the company across Rohan's wilderness. Now I had the chance to live up to my words. Not just the chance, I told myself, but the duty. For any hours I spent wandering lost, might be the hours that meant the deaths of Meriadoc and Peregrin.

I hoped I was not the only one tracking the halflings' captors. Hopefully Aragorn and the rest were a day or two's march ahead of me. My dislike for the Ranger had not blinded me to the fact that he cared for all of the Hobbits. I was sure he would never willingly leave them to their fates.

And yet …

I knew Aragorn believed in the Ringbearer's quest, with all the fervour of fanaticism. If he thought that by deserting Merry and Pippin, he could buy the time necessary to secure the Ring's destruction – might he have done it?

No. That was foolishness. Aragorn had also shown himself bound by Frodo's decisions, and Frodo would never sacrifice his friends, even if by taking the time to save them he might jeopardise his quest.

Would he?

It did not matter. Either the others were ahead of me, and I would hopefully catch up in time to be of some use to them – or I was the only hope that Merry and Pippin had left. Either way, I had to reach them as quickly as possible. And I would not ease the problem in the slightest by thinking about it.

At least, if my Orc informant spoke true, Saruman's orders would keep Merry and Pippin alive until they reached Isengard.

But then?

Saruman must have ordered that the halflings be taken alive because he knew that one of them carried the Ring. When he discovered that neither Merry nor Pippin was the Ringbearer, their lives would have no value to him.

I vowed, If he kills them – or gives them to his Orcs – I will dismantle his precious tower until not one stone stands upon another. I will destroy him, I do not care if it kills me and I have to come back from the dead again to accomplish it.

My path had been taking me steadily upward. The slope was a good deal gentler than it would have been had I scaled to the top of Rauros, with or without the North Stair. But still when I turned to look back at the territory behind me, I saw the Great River glimmering far below, like a belt of silver stretched out over the land.

The trees were gradually thinning out, and the land getting more rocky. It was developing into a beautiful day: the air still chill with the last breaths of the winter, but holding a definite hint of spring. There had been some clouds hanging in the sky when the day began, but as the sun climbed higher it had burned away the cloud.

It did not take me long to fall back into the rhythm of the voyage. I seemed to have spent the entire last half-year walking across Middle Earth. It would be pleasant, some day, for it to stop, but yet at the same time, it had become increasingly comfortable. At least while I kept moving forward, I could keep hold of the conviction that I was accomplishing something. And when I focused on the landscape, the ground, the sound of my feet on the earth, it gave me something to do other than think about all the problems I did not know how to solve.

I had, at least, a goal on which to keep focused, and one that I thought I had some chance of accomplishing. And rescuing the two halflings was a goal in which I could believe – not like the accursed mission to destroy the Ring, of which I'd had to keep fighting to convince myself, over and over again. That every now and then I talked myself into believing, but that most of the time sounded like the rankest madness.

As the morning wore on, I felt almost cheerful. Certainly closer to cheerful than I had been for many weeks – since long before I had died.

I should have known that my good mood was too pleasant to last.

I began to notice that I was growing cold.

It had been creeping in on my senses for some time, but I kept shrugging it off. But once, when I stopped in an open meadow to look around, it swept in at me the instant I ceased walking.

The cold seemed to be spreading through me from the inside, as if the very blood in my veins had decreased in temperature.

It made no sense. I had been getting colder the farther I walked, yet the sun was directly overhead, beaming down on me with all the generosity of its noon heat. There was nothing to stop it from reaching me here, no clouds and at this point not even any trees. I could feel the sun's heat on my skin, but it seemed like something alien that could not bring any warmth to me. I wondered if the chill could have come from wearing wet clothes in the February air, but that didn't make any sense, either. My clothing seemed entirely dried by now, from the sunlight and the heat of my exertions. Yet even with my clothes dry again, I was just getting colder and colder.

I walked on, telling myself I was imagining it. I just had to keep going; the exercise would warm me up. I would run into someone who'd give me some food; I should have expected some ill effects from hacking up Orcs and then setting out on this hike when I'd eaten nothing but a couple of bites of leaf stew. If I kept going, everything would turn out all right.

But it did not.

My legs seemed to be growing heavier. It was an ever-increasing effort to lift them from the ground. And I could barely feel them; they felt distant as if both of my legs had fallen asleep.

It seemed that I was falling asleep as well. I kept slipping into vague, haunting dreams, only to snap back again to the realisation that I'd only taken a few steps in the time that I thought I should have gone a mile.

In those moments when I was awake, I started to know that I was afraid.

My steps stumbled to a halt again as the land ahead of me rose in another steep incline. I stared up at it, the desperate cold seeming to swamp my being and my feet feeling rooted to the ground.

I felt the beating of my heart, thudding through me. I wondered if it were imagining, or if my heart were truly beating slower than it ought to be. It seemed as if I could feel every beat of it, and the beats were growing farther and farther apart. When they did come, they seemed to shake my entire body.

The thought shot through my mind, I'm too far away from the River.

It's insane, I thought. I won't accept it.

I'd just rest a little, catch my breath, then I'd go on.

I couldn't have walked more than ten miles at the most. That was nothing. Hunger and exertion shouldn't be doing this to me; I'd gone far longer than this without eating, and it had not stopped me before. Of course, I should make allowances for the fact that I'd been dead. Who knew what that could do to my body's ability to function?

Who knew? I could think of one person who claimed to know.

I heard the voice of Svip, insisting, "If you leave here, you'll die."

With agonising slowness, my body seeming to take hours to obey my commands, I turned back to face the River.

I couldn't see it. There were too many trees and hills between us.

I thought, I have to go back.

I found myself staring at my feet, wondering if I could make them move.

A snarl of frustration and rage escaped me.

It was a joke. I refused to accept that I could battle Orcs while I had arrows protruding from my chest, yet I could not walk ten miles from the River.

My heart thumped with a force that seemed it would shake me apart.

I had to go back.

I took a step back down the hillside, then another.

On the third step, I fell. Distantly, I heard my grunt of shock as I hit the ground.

I think I lost consciousness, then I came to again with my face pressed into dirt and pine needles.

I tried to force myself back up, my fingers clawing into the earth.

The thought came to me, Boromir Son of Denethor, you are so very stupid.

My brother had told me that. Repeatedly.

And a lot of women had told me that.

Now it seemed that all of them had been right.

You are very, very stupid.

If Svip had told me once, he'd told me a hundred times. If I left the River, I'd die.

Why did I have to wait to believe him until I'd tried it out for myself?

I'd managed to shove myself partway off the ground. With a ridiculous amount of effort, I started to crawl back down the hill.

I wondered desperately, even as I inched down the hillside, What do you think you're going to accomplish?

Did I really think that I could crawl ten miles?

Then again, why not try?

Better to die crawling, than to not try at all.

Of course, there was all the noble-sounding stuff I had told myself. That if I wasn't out there helping my country and my friends, I might as well be dead.

All well and good. But when it came to a choice between just lying here and dying, and doing everything I could to stay alive, there was no debate about which I would pick.

A twisting tree root protruded from the ground near my right hand. I forced myself to take hold of it, and pulled my body another few feet down the slope.

I was so very cold. Even on Caradhras, in the snow, it had never seemed this cold.

I thought that I wouldn't mind dying, if only I could get warm.

Some time later, I don't know how long, there came a voice.

"Come on. Here, come on. Drink this. Here, wake up."

I think I groaned.

Someone had taken hold of my shoulders, urging me up. I blearily remember once more pushing myself up out of the dirt.

"Come on, drink it. It's good; it's from the River. Come on, please!"

I must have blacked out again. And then the voice was yelling at me.

"Boromir Son of Denethor Steward of Gondor! Wake up and drink this now!"

I somehow managed to sit up. Whoever it was put a wineskin or something to my mouth, and water was pouring over my lips. I gasped, choked a little, then swallowed.

It was like water, and the reviving draughts of the Elves, and all the finest alcohol I had ever tasted, rolled into one.

I couldn't see, but I grabbed hold of the wineskin and swallowed, again and again.

"Wait. Stop. Here, stop, leave a little for later. It's a long way back."

I blinked and found myself looking into the long, green, worried face of Svip.

I groaned as the water creature took the wineskin from my still numb fingers. "Svip. How did you get here?"

"Same way as you. I walked. Only your legs are longer. And I can't keep up the shape shifting for more than a couple of miles from the River."

That comment meant absolutely nothing to me, but I was too worn out to even attempt to think about it. I felt like I was about to fall asleep again.

"Oh, no," said Svip, "no, no, no, no, no. Get up. We've got to get back."

I moaned.

"Come on, get up," the little being insisted. "We're going back to the River, now."

I could have wept from exhaustion, but I staggered to my feet. It seemed that doing as he said was the only way to make Svip leave me alone.

He was barely even tall enough for me to lean on him, and I didn't want to risk putting much of my weight on him, anyway. So he kept scampering back and forth as I started my unsteady progress down the hill; ranging ahead and running back to check on me like an excitable dog, and gingerly taking hold of my arm or warning me of the various obstacles in my path. All the while he kept up a stream of comments and questions.

"It'll get easier as you get closer to the River, really it will. I'll give you the rest of the water when we're halfway down, all right? Watch out, there's a root in the way. You'll stay for a while this time, won't you? When do you usually sleep? You slept through most of the day and the night, but that's probably because you just died? What do you like to eat? There really is some very nice fish in the River. I like it raw with a little bit of oakweed, but it won't be any trouble to cook it for you. Did you kill all those Orcs? You didn't get wounded, did you? I know they have poisoned arrows sometimes. I hope you won't die again; I'm not sure it'll work, bringing you back twice. I mean, it might not bring back all of you. If you see what I mean. That is, it might not be really you. Were those the same Orcs who killed you before? Are they chasing you? Look out for that boulder!"

I had seen the rock in question, but misjudged the distance to it. I stubbed one foot on it and lost my balance, not exactly falling, but sitting down, hard. Once down, it seemed entirely too complicated to get up again. I sat there on the boulder, with the beat of my heart pounding achingly through my head.

Svip flitted around me like an agitated humming bird. "You shouldn't rest yet, we're not close enough. Come on, we've got to keep moving. Oh, dear. I didn't want to give you the rest of the water yet, there isn't much left, but if I let you have the water, will you promise to get up? You're not listening to me, are you? Oh, dear. You look terrible. I'm sure you aren't supposed to look that pale. Look, stand up first and then I'll give you that water. All right? Are you listening? If you can hear me, say something!"

I groaned, burying my head in my hands. I felt like I had a mortal wound combined with the king of all hangovers. "Svip, please, shut up," I grated. "I can't take any more questions."

That had been the wrong thing to say if I wanted Svip to stop talking. He sounded positively delighted. "Ha, well. I'll keep asking questions until you start walking again." Svip paused dramatically to let that sink in, then launched into, "Did dying hurt a lot? How many Orcs have you killed? Who buried you? How old are you? Do you remember being dead? Were those Orcs chasing you? Are there more Orcs on the west shore than there used to be? Have you seen the ocean? Where did you get the Elven boat? Have you met lots of Elves? Was my tea really terrible? Why do you want to leave? Where were you going? Do you like wine? I've got some bottles, but some of them have been underwater hundreds of years, do you think they'll still be good? How do you like your fish?"

I jumped up and started down the hill again before my brain had even stopped spinning. "I'm walking, Svip!" I yelled to the water being who was somewhere behind me. He scampered to catch up.

To Svip's credit, he did stop asking me questions for a while. And ever so slowly, it seemed my progress was growing easier. Warmth was starting to creep back into me through layer on layer of cold. The length of time between spells when my vision blacked out seemed to be getting longer.

I began counting my steps, starting at one again every time I lost count. I lost count at least eight times, usually somewhere in the hundreds, though once I had made it to over 2,500.

The afternoon was wearing out. The shadows in the woods were growing steadily darker as we drew toward the long night of the dying winter.

When I lost count of my footsteps for the eighth or ninth time, I stopped to lean against a tree. One branch was at the right level for me to rest my head against. The rough bark pressing into my face was wonderful, simply because I could feel it. I could feel the roughness where it dug into my skin, and that small sensation helped reassure me that I was indeed alive.

Svip interrupted my meditations on tree bark. He pushed the wineskin into my hand, saying, "You can finish the water if you like. I think we're close enough."

I weighed the wineskin experimentally in my hand. There must be just a few swallows left. I took only two, and corked the skin again. Even those two seemed to go straight to all my senses, sharpening them as if I'd been half asleep before I drank, and had only now woken up.

The next sight I encountered made me wonder if I was dreaming, instead.

I had turned away from the tree to ask Svip if he wanted the wineskin back, and found myself inches away from a big, slate-grey horse.

The horse had its face right in mine, and as I recoiled with a startled exclamation its mouth opened and the voice of Svip emerged, "There, I said we were close enough. Do you want a ride?"

To say I eyed him warily would be accurate, as far as it goes. The horse's mouth didn't seem to move as the words came out, but the voice was definitely Svip's. I croaked out something like, "How do you do that?"

The grey horse's left shoulder moved in what was apparently a shrug. "All of us can," he said. "It's for luring unwary travellers into the water."

"Oh," I muttered. "Great."

He didn't look quite right for a horse, I thought now as I studied him more carefully. The location and shape of the eyes were definitely wrong, more like Svip's own than those of any horse. And something about the proportions of his body was wrong, too. Nonetheless, the effect was astounding. Now, I thought, I really had slipped into a fireside story, complete with miraculous returns from the dead and a talking horse.

"Come on, get on," Svip urged. "We can go a lot faster."

"Are you sure you can hold me?" I asked. "I'm pretty heavy."

"Don't worry. If you get too heavy I'll just drop you."

"Thanks," I growled.

I am not entirely comfortable with horses at the best of times. My relatives of the Rohirrim tell me it's a weakness in my character, and doubtless they are correct. Be that as it may, I have never quite been happy entrusting my well-being and dignity to the back of an animal that might take a notion to throw me at any moment. My uneasiness was not decreased by the knowledge that this particular horse spent most of its time as a creature about three and a half feet tall and weighing no more than fifty pounds. The uncanny effect of hearing Svip's voice emerge from the horse without its mouth moving made me wonder if the horse was even solid. My mind conjured the peculiar idea that Svip was actually somewhere inside there, crouched in the belly of a gigantic horse-shaped balloon.

"Come on," Svip said, "I'll give you plenty of warning if I'm going to drop you."

Half-heartedly I sought for a way to get out of this, but the truth was that I didn't want to walk the rest of the way back to the River, either. I wasn't sure that trusting myself to a shape-shifting horse was better than walking, but I supposed it would be rudeness to my host not to give it a try.

Gritting my teeth and wishing that Svip had included a saddle and stirrups in his shape-shifting, I boosted myself inelegantly onto the horse's back.

"There," Svip's voice came cheerfully, "that wasn't so bad, was it? Hold on tight."

For want of reins I wound one hand in the horse's black mane, and he started picking his way around the rocks and trees.

I had to admit, the return trip went faster this way, and it didn't seem to have any drawbacks beyond the standard uncomfortable jolting that would have come from riding any horse bareback down a hill. I couldn't help imagining that he would change back into the usual Svip at any second and send me flying, but he did not. The best feature of all of this was probably the fact that worrying whether Svip would throw me almost made me forget how hideous I felt.

The sun was low in the sky by the time we made it back to Anduin's shore, disappearing in the trees behind us. Svip trotted out of the woods, and stopped at the point where the grasses along the shoreline gave way to mud and rocks. "All right," he announced, still sounding cheerful, if a little out of breath, "you can get off me now."

I bit back several sarcastic comments and concentrated on dismounting without landing on my posterior. It wasn't until I had my feet on the ground again that I suddenly realised how much better I felt. I wasn't cold. I felt almost normal, except for the aching exhaustion in every part of me.

Gingerly I patted Svip's big grey shoulder. "Thank you," I said. Then I couldn't say anything else, because I was too busy staring at the waters of Anduin. I felt that I had to get into the River that instant or I might still keel over dead, from the sheer anguish of not being in that water.

I managed not to break into a run, but only barely. I waded a few paces into the water between two tall, outcropping rocks, then I could not resist any longer. I sat down in the water, then lay back and stretched out, feeling whole for the first time since the coldness had hit me in the forest.

The familiar roaring of Rauros blended with waterbirds' wild calls. I sighed, revelling in the sensation of the soft breeze on my face and the water lapping around my body and caressing its way through my hair.

Suddenly I felt Svip's hand close around my arm – his hand, not his hoof – and heard his urgent, whispered tones.

"Don't sit up. Don't move. There are Orcs on the east shore."