Years 3012-3017 of the Third Age
The next three years of Ralph’s life were interesting, if occasionally lonely ones.
Treebeard, for all that he was the beating heart of this strange forest, was mostly a very still heart, and spent much of his time like the trees that he herded. Which meant sleeping.
This in turn meant that Ralph basically had the place to himself. Once his injuries had healed, he felt more capable of trotting around the woods, sometimes for days on end, just getting to know it better.
One such day he found a lookout post – a great stone out cropping that rose above the canopy – and met a strange creature named Stormkettle.
Stormkettle was a raven, one of the old breed that could speak all languages of Men and Beast and a little of the Elves speech too, though with a terrible accent. She was middle-aged, for her species, and having had an eventful career as a messenger for Dwarves, had now decided she was going to settle down and raise a brood. She faced several obstacles though, she told Ralph.
One: her husband was still in the service of the Dwarves and often away from home.
Two: huorn keep dislodging her nests because apparently they itched.
And three, oh dear, three…
“I don’t know why,” she lamented. “F---! I don’t know why this would happen to me now! I hardly ever f---ing swore while I was carrying! I keep telling myself, ‘Nevermore! I’ll curse nevermore! S---!’ but as you see it doesn’t seem to bloody well work.”
Ralph was no stranger to foul mouths but this was quite beyond the pale. He could only sit in abject shock and listen to Kettle’s tragic – and filthy – diatribe.
When he got back, Treebeard took one cock-eyed look at him and said, “Ah, yes, hroom, hum, I suppose…I am no great judge of wolfish expressions, but room-doom, yes, I can see from yours you have met Stormkettle.” He smiled a great slow smile. “She is, hmmm, quite something, is she not?”
“Err. Yes,” was all Ralph could say.
Treebeard laughed. The great rolling sound made Ralph think of hills and sprawling mountains. “Come, little wolf. I will give you something to ease your senses and sensibilities.”
It was then that he was shown Wellinghall, were Treebeard spent his time when he wasn’t out seeing to the huorn and minimizing squirrel consumption. The Ent also gave the young wolf his first taste of Entdraft.
Ralph had never tasted anything so wonderful in his life. It was like drinking sunlight, and the colour of new leaves, and springtime, and…
…and it made him grow.
For as long as he could remember, Ralph had been the smallest of the pack. There were whelps three years younger who had already outgrown him, and he himself hadn’t done a great deal of growing since he was two and his family had moved to Isengard to join the ranks of the fighting hoard.
So, as one can imagine, it was something of a surprise to find himself broader through the shoulder, with a longer spine and limbs that reached further than before. He was clumsy as a yearling for a month afterwards, trying to find his new centre of balance and letting his brain catch up with the new proportions of his body.
But once he got the hang of himself again…he could outrun the wind. No creature that ran on four-legs save the Mearas ever ran as swift and sure and smooth as Ralph did when he ran through the trees of Fangorn or across the plains of Rohan as its people slept oblivious.
It was on the plains that Ralph was forced to go if he wanted food, for nothing edible lived in Fangorn apart from a few unlucky squirrels (quietly, he suspected the huorn had disposed of whatever else there might have been out of sheer crotchetiness).
On the plains and in small copses of trees that stood separated from the forest he found deer and rabbits, partridge and pheasant, and if he was lucky, the occasional lost sheep. He was always careful make his kills quick and clean, and hide the remains where no Man or Horse-Lord would find them and suspect a wolf of having come to live upon the boarder of Rohan.
It was no surprise, really, that on a steady diet of rich game and Entdraft, Ralph continued to grow, until he was at least as big as a full-grown Warg and, like them, could have brought down a horse if he’d half a mind to.
Luckily for one horse in particular, he hadn’t the slightest inclination.
Three years, and perhaps a few months after Ralph came to live in Fangorn, so did that one horse in particular.
Ralph had spent the morning sitting at the tree line, lazily observing the sky and plains…and mocking a rather stupid dog that had come upon him as it passed the woods. Ralph suspected it was a Dunleading’s dog that had gotten lost while its master went about poaching at night.
Or tried to poach. For all anyone knew, the poor sod could be folded in half and tucked up under the roots a savage old beech tree by now.
Ralph wasn’t hugely worried. If daft humans wanted to go poking about in the bowels of woods that could eat you that was their business. In the meantime, he was going to make faces at the silly hound they’d left behind and see just how far the creature’s stupidity went.
The hound, for its part, knew that going into the trees was a bad idea, but was by this point half mad with aggravation at the wolf (forgetting that it was at least ten times the size that it was; this was one very dim dog) and about two minutes from charging in anyway. It sat and paced and yammered in its garbled doggy speech and generally had a bit of seizure every time Ralph made an awful face at it or called it names wolf-tongue, which it seemed to understand most of.
Certainly understood the swear words, at any rate.
The pair of them were so occupied that they didn’t hear the thunder of dinner-plate sized hooves until the dog came within a hair’s breadth of being trampled by them. Ralph looked up in time to see a great blur of grey very nearly on top of them and let out a yelp of surprise. The dog turned, yelping itself and darted away, howling unhappily. Ralph was just swift enough to leap to the side and watch, shocked, as the big grey cart-horse, as it turned out, charged past him and into the depths of the woods.
“Oh, no,” Ralph groaned, and took off after it.
If there was a horse here, he thought frantically as he ran, then Men would soon follow, looking for the blasted thing. And in looking for it they might find him and…that didn’t bear thinking about, actually.
“Come back!” he shouted. “Come back here!”
But the horse ignored him, blindly running deeper and deeper into the woods.
Ralph shook his head at the stupidity of some animals and kept running. He soon outpaced the runaway animal, finding it caught in a corral of branches; the trees were be beginning to close ranks about it, hemming it in. Ralph smoothly leapt up into the out-stretched limbs of a Bay Fig and started yelling again, trying to get its attention.
“Hey! Hey! Hey, Horse!”
The horse wheeled, snorting its fear and rage and rearing to beat its hooves against the boles of the encroaching trees.
“Whoa! No, no, don’t do that!” Ralph was getting frantic now; he could feel the huorn getting angrier. Any minute now they would catch the horse’s ankles with their roots and drag it down, crushing it and pulling it under the earth. “Don’t do that! The trees –”
Too late.
The horse smashed its forefeet into the trunk of the Bay Fig where Ralph perched. The tree trembled and swayed. Ralph was forced to dig in his dew claws to stay aloft. A low roar like the bending and grinding of tree-limbs sounded under the canopy.
Not. Good.
From his vantage point, Ralph saw one of the Bay Fig’s aerial roots lift and knock against the horse’s legs, sending it staggering as it spun away. It let out a whinny of alarm, eyes rolling to show the whites.
“No, no, no!” He turned to begging the huorn. “Please, please don’t, he’s afraid, he’s crazy, just don’t –”
Another root snaked out to grip the horse’s ankle.
“No!”
Ralph leapt from his perch, turning in midair to shove the horse with his rounded shoulder.
The creatures screamed with distress and staggered back.
Then it spotted Ralph.
And froze.
Ralph ignored it for moment, circling the corral, nudging and nipping roots that still reached for it
“Back, back, please,” he said, addressing the trees, “this one meant no harm, he didn’t, I promise you. Back, back…”
It was very lucky that the huorn still liked Ralph. For all he knew they were letting him get away with this because they assumed he was going to eat the horse himself. He turned towards the creature in question, watching it curiously.
“Please,” it breathed in horse-speech, “oh, please don’t eat me.”
Ralph started at it, experiencing a moment of déjà vu before he started laughing. “You,” he wheezed, struggling to get his breath, “you are the luckiest of horses!”
“I – I am?”
“Yes!” Ralph laughed. “Not only do I speak Horse, but I am possibly the only wolf on the face of the world who would actually listen to you!”
The horse stared at him, still trembling a little. “But…but you’re…you’re not going eat me? Is that what you’re saying?”
Ralph sat, head tilted to one side and a wide smile on his face. The horse flinched a little at the sight of so many sparkling white teeth but stood its ground.
“I am not going to eat you,” Ralph confirmed. “I’ve never eaten a horse, and I don’t intend to.”
“Er, I may be pushing my luck here, but…why not?”
Ralph shrugged his shaggy shoulders. “Men value you too highly. It is not worth my while to cross them just for a meal. Besides which, I speak your tongue, and it seems very strange – and not a little unnerving – to want to eat something whose language you’re not deaf to. Men are free to kill any number of things because they do not know how to converse with them; they eat sheep and cows and some of the Dunleadings even eat elderly horses –” here his companion put his ears back and quivered “– and they feel no fear or remorse because they do no hear those creatures pleas for mercy, nor the cries of pain from trees as they are cut down.”
The horse stared at him. “Trees can speak?”
“You were nearly eaten by at least twelve of them,” Ralph said drily. “Is it a stretch too far to believe they were talking to one another, coordinating their attack as they reached for you?”
The horse peered warily at the trees that still swayed and creaked around them. He put his dappled ears back and muttered, “No. No, I suppose not…”
Ralph let out a soft snuffling laugh. “Come on then, I’ll guide you back out.”
“Back out?”
“Of the woods. You can’t stay here, clearly. You might be eaten. I can’t spend every waking moment keeping you from being caught by the huorn.”
He turned and began to make his way back out of the trees, prodding some of the more reluctant roots out of the path. He got about three feet before he realized that there was no accompanying sound of hoof beats behind him.
Ralph paused, looking over his shoulder. “Well, come on.”
The horse shuffled uncomfortably. “Um. I’d rather not.”
Ralph stared. “What?”
“I ran in here for a reason you know,” came the rather peevish reply.
The damned horse wasn’t the only one getting annoyed. Ralph glowered. “Which is?” he demanded.
The horse skittered. “I, um, well… I’m a cart-horse.”
“Yes. I can see that. What of it?”
“I don’t want to be.”
There was a pause. Ralph stared at the horse. The horse stared back at Ralph.
“You jest,” Ralph said eventually.
“No, really,” the horse said earnestly. “I don’t want to pull carts. I…well, I want to be free.” He flicked his tail, ears pricking forward. “I want to run upon the hills, and drink in rushing streams, and eat wild grasses and to…um.”
“And to what?” said Ralph, who was rapidly beginning to believe that the whole world was slowly but steadily going mad; first a walking tree-creature, then huorn that ate people and now a horse that didn’t want to pull carts.
It got better. Or worse. Or something.
“I want to…” the horse sighed dreamily. “I want to compose poetry.”
…what?
“What?” said Ralph.
“Yes,” the horse continued, oblivious to his companion’s incredulity, “I will be a master of verse and prose. My rhythms and rhymes will ring from the hilltops. I shall wax lyrical to the denizens of the plains...!”
Even the huorn seemed puzzled by this peculiar turn of events. Their surprise was nothing compared to Ralph’s.
“Alright,” the wolf said slowly, “so…you want to be a poet. That’s just…great. For you. Er…but what has that got to do with you charging in here and nearly being eaten by omnivorous trees?”
The horse blinked. “Well…I ran away from the farmer. He’s looking for me. His dogs were chasing me.”
“They were?”
“Yes, only I’m much faster. I saw one as I came in here though. It must have gotten lost.”
“Likely,” Ralph put in. “It did seem very stupid. So, you came in here to hide?”
“Yes! No dog would follow anyone in here unless they were dragged.”
“Don’t bet on it,” Ralph muttered under his breath. “In any case, you can’t stay here. You’ll still be eaten no matter how lyrical you wax.”
The horse put his ears back again and stamped one hoof. “Then where will I go?”
“I’ll lead you to the other side of the woods. Neither the Riders of Rohan nor the Men of Dunland go there for fear of the elves that live in nearby Lorien. With any luck you will meet an elf who will look after you and you can compose as much poetry as you like.”
The horse reluctantly began to follow him, this time deeper into the trees. “Would elves not have wagons and carts for me to pull?”
“They live in trees by all accounts. How could you pull a cart through trees?” he answered, tilting his head to indicate the dense wood around them.
“How do you know they live in trees?” the horse asked suspiciously. “Come to that, how do you know the speech of horses? Who are you?”
“Treebeard told me, Treebeard taught me and my name is Ralph.” He looked over his shoulder again at the horse. “And who are you, uncart-horse?”
“I am called Drum. For the sound of my hooves, you know,” the horse explained. “When I run, it sounds like drums.”
“Very appropriate,” Ralph said dryly, remembering the approaching thunder of Drum’s arrival.
The walked the rest of the day and by sunset came upon the northern edge of Fangorn.
“It looks nice,” Drum said, observing from the tree-line. “Thank you, Ralph.”
The wolf shrugged. “Nice enough. Farewell, Drum.” He turned to go.
“Wait!”
Ralph looked back at the horse. Drum stood between the great trees with the fading daylight spilling about him, watching Ralph with curious dark eyes.
“Why…why did you save me?”
Ralph tilted his head to one side. “I told you, Drum; because Men would follow after you, and find me and…well. Find me and kill me.” He looked steadily at Drum. “I don’t want to die.”
Drum didn’t seem satisfied. “Is that all?” he said, stamping one huge hoof. “You saved me to save yourself, and because of my value to Mankind?”
Ralph was about to say yes, that was the whole of it…but something stopped him. He looked down at his paws, thinking.
“No,” he murmured. “No, now that I think on it, that is not the only reason.” He sighed. “You were trapped, there in the trees, and angry and afraid. And I have been like that; hemmed in on all sides and full of despair. I remember that. I don’t want it for anyone else.” He looked back up at Drum, smiled a little. “Even some silly uncart-horse who wants to compose poetry.”
Drum put his ears forward, eyes bright, the corners of his own soft mouth curled in an equine smile.
“And so I say again,” he murmured. “Thank you, Ralph.”
They were friends from then on.
Right up until the day Drum disappeared.
---
On-Site Journal of Erin Berenger
Alpine dig-site 8, Rohirric Region, Misty Mtns
Saturday, August 28, 2010, Seventh Age
I’m an idiot.
That’s the only explanation I can come up with. I’m not a
I’m back in Fangorn.
So maybe that makes me too far into my tree.
I don’t know. Oh, gods and ancestors, I don’t know why I keep coming back here. I used to hear horror stories about this place when I was a kid and have nightmares about it. But now that I’m here…I can’t seem to stay away.
Toby’s worried. He doesn’t say anything, but I can tell. I keep getting these sidelong looks and when I put in for the transfer to the dig out here he left the Prof’s office and wouldn’t look at me at all. I think he thinks it’s him; that I’m trying to get away from him and what we had and…
Only its not, you know, it’s this place. It’s still calling my name, and I’m beginning to understand why. I think. I hope.
I’m writing this because I made a find yesterday.
There’s this clearing, where I am now, and I honestly just came here to take a breather, get some sunlight, but I stumbled over what looks like some kind of habitation. Or evidence of one, at any rate. There’s a spring, and a deep streambed that must have flowed here for centuries and in the undergrowth beside them, I found two stone jars. I took samples – scrapings – and got them tested.
Third Age. No doubt about it. Obie, the tech who did the processing for me nearly wet himself. Wants to see the source. I had to dissemble like a fiend to get out of that one.
There was something else though; a residue that sort of…glittered. Glowed, really. I got it on my hands when I was handling the jars and didn’t even realize. The weird thing though, is that I had a scrap on my left hand, and after I touched the jars…well, it’s gone. Healed. Like it was never there.
I keep waiting to wake up…
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