Warg's Tail - Part Three: Into the Woods

Isengard

Year 3012 of the Third Age

The pack spent that night under the stars, in a field just beyond the walls of Orthanc’s circle.

There had been a raid on one of the villages at the edge of Rohan, and those taken prisoner had been slaughtered while Ralph and his brothers were in the training pit. The young Wargs were to have their first taste of man-flesh.

Ralph, however, was oblivious to the excitement of his packmates. He lay off by himself amongst the long grass and gazed down the river valley, wondering.

He knew he had to get out, had to leave…but leave and go where? The world was not a safe place for a lone Warg these days, even one who by all accounts looked more like a common hound than a true Warg. Anyone or anything he came across was like as not to try and kill him before he could even get two words out to explain. Not only that, if his own packmates found him after he’d left, he’d likely be killed as a deserter.

Ralph shivered.

He didn’t like the Orcs. They were vicious, needlessly vicious, and terribly creative. There was no telling what kind of horrors they would visit on him before they killed him. And it would be them to carry out the punishment; the alliance between wolves of all kinds and Orckind had been slipping into the latter’s favour for decades now. Slowly but surely, Wargs and their wolfish cousins were being ranked among beasts of burden and warhorses. His people were becoming tools.

If he didn’t go somewhere, he too would be fitted with a yoke and sent to die for the White Wizard’s campaign.

There was the rumble of footsteps approaching and a thud beside him. Ralph stared at the bloodied hunk of meat and bone that had been dropped at his feet. Then he looked up at the one who had brought it to him.

Ruud blinked his small black eyes back at him.

“Uh, Ruud,” Ralph said cautiously, “what is that?”

“Man-flesh,” said Ruud. “Its what’s for dinner.”

Ralph nodded, eyeing the hunk of meat with great reluctance.

“That would explain the fingers,” he muttered.

It smelt…wrong. Not horrific and nose-burning like Orc meat, but just…wrong. It still smelt like a person. Not like something you ate.

What he wouldn’t give for a nice, fat, stray sheep…

“Tell you what, Ruud, I’m not really hungry. Why don’t you have it?”

Ruud blinked at him again, disbelieving this time, then said, “Alright,” and fell on the severed limb like a starving pup.

Ruud was rather single-minded – and more that a little messy – when he ate, so Ralph left him to it, and began scouting out something more palatable.

It didn’t take long to see that the raiding party had brought some livestock back with them too. There was a cow hobbled beside the tree line, lowing pitifully and letting out alarmed bellows whenever a Warg came too close. Her calf stood shaking beside her, nearly immobile with fright.

Ralph sidled round and through the trees. When the opportune moment came he slipped forward and nipped the calf’s lead that bound him to his mother’s collar then caught the little bugger by the throat before it could mouth off and alert the rest to his thievery. He killed it quick in the shelter of the trees and ate until his stomach begged for mercy.

Half an hour later, he had dozed off…only to be woken by the furious yelling of an Orc captain.

“Where’s that bleeding calf?” the captain was roaring. “That was for the Master’s table! Where is it? Which one of you sniveling fleabags has skulked off with it?”

“Here,” said another voice, “here, look, Captain, the tracks go this way!”

They were coming into the trees…

I’m dead, Ralph thought, scrambling to his feet and taking off further into the woods, up the eastern side of the valley. He let out a soft groan when he heard the sound of quick Orcish feet behind him.

“Get back here!” a horrid croaking voice yelled, echoing against the side of the trees. It was the captain. “Get back here, thief! Get back here so I can slit your cowering belly and take back what you stole!”

But Ralph didn’t. In a moment of near-blinding clarity, he saw two paths ahead of him, beneath his feet as they beat upon the earth. If he took the first and turned back, he would be beaten, savaged by the clubs of the Orcs and by the fangs of his pack. Likely, he would die.

If he took the second…

There was no clear end. The path went on, far into the horizon of his mind. Maybe his end would be terrible there too, but it would not be for a while, and then again it might not be terrible at all.

A shiver ran the length of his spine, like a great warm hand drawn along his back…and he put on a burst of speed, throwing himself forward and running like he’d never run before.

Behind, him, the Orcs' voices were getting further and further away.

He kept going, and saw that as the valley became steeper, the trees became denser, older, and the woods around him darker. The air seemed still, and there was no sound of night birds or insects.

There was a yelp behind him; an unexpected sound of Orcish fear.

Ralph pulled up short, spinning about.

There was nothing there.

He stood for a moment, listening to the sound of his own breathing and the steady double thump of his heart.

Another yelp sounded; he realized that the still air carried noises further so that things sounded closer under these trees.

“Quit yer whinging,” he heard the captain snap.

“But it got me, it got my foot!” another Orc insisted.

“It did not – argh! Back, back, retreat!”

There was the sound of furiously scrabbling feet and clanking armor…then something like a branch bending…a whip crack…and a fearful wail.

Ralph’s jaws dropped open in a grin.

Unbelievable; they were really going back.

He’d escaped.

He was free…

---

On-Site Journal of Erin Berenger

Alpine dig-site 8, Rohirric Region, Misty Mtns

Wednesday, August 25, 2010, Seventh Age

It’s my day off, so here I am at Dig 8, seeing the sights and taking long soothing walks around the woods.

Also, one particular walk through the woods. Which, I know, we’re not supposed to do, because it’s easy to get lost in there and even rescue crews have trouble moving about in such densely pack trees…but I just couldn’t help myself.

It was almost like…something was calling my name.

Now, don’t get me wrong. Personally, you can take your loopy mysticism and shove it where the sun don’t shine, but there is something frigging creepy about Fangorn Forest. The entire time I was there, it was like I was drugged. Like a voice was whispering my name, but I couldn’t really hear it. I got up to the tree line and thought, this is a bad idea.

But kept walking.

Once I was in there, under the trees…oh, it was so weird. All the noise from the dig disappeared; everyone’s voices, the sounds of the quad bikes and all-terrains, just gone. As though someone had shut a door on them.

I walked for a little while, looked around.

At one point, I thought I heard something behind me. When I turned around there was nothing there, but I thought I saw…

I can’t believe I’m writing this.

I thought I saw a tree with eyes.

---

Western-most edge of Fangorn Forest

Year 3012 of the Third Age

He ran for the rest of the night, despite his exhaustion and the pain of his still aching injuries. He fell once, and the cut on his cheek split open again, blood spilling hot and thick down his face.

Ralph ignored it, and plowed onwards, running as fast as his paws could take him and as far. Fifty miles as the crow flies, up hill and down dale, and the trees growing ever bigger, older, more twisted the further into them he plunged. The air was almost choking, but still he gasped and drew it in, ‘til it didn’t feel thick anymore, only rich with ancient scents.

Deeper and deeper. Darker and darker. Until his legs simply gave out, and he crumpled to the forest floor.

Above him, the trees whispered in a language he didn’t understand. Leaves rustling, bark twisting, limbs groaning and sighing.

But Ralph was deaf to it, able only to hear his own thundering heart and bellows of his breaths. He managed to crawl into a hollow made by an oak tree’s roots, a cradle pillowed with deep leaf litter and soft earth.

“Thank you,” he breathed, without quite knowing why, “oh, thank you…”

The trees spoke, watching him without eyes, listening without ears.

…what is he…? they wondered.

…edible… some answered.

…evil…! cried others.

…only young… murmured the oak whose roots Ralph had cuddled down in. …only young, with a path to tred and besides…besides…he said thank you…

…yes…yes…we suppose…yes…he did say thank you…

The trees settled with a collective sigh.

Ralph was oblivious to how close he came to being eaten by omnivorous huorn.

He was already asleep, and had been for the past five minutes.

---

Morning came too soon, and Ralph was woken by sunlight trickling through the canopy where it could, golden fingers making valiant attempts to pry apart the deadening blankets of leaves.

He blinked, eyes still bleary with sleep…

“HROOM!” roared quite possibly the biggest, most frightening voice Ralph had ever heard, “HOOM! WHAT IS THIS?”

Ralph was grabbed by his left hind leg and hauled inexorably upwards. Therefore his only possible response was, “Gah!” followed by a loud yelp of terror.

“WHAT MANNER OF BEAST ARE YOU?” demanded the great and powerful voice.

Ralph swung back and forth, staring in horror at the thing that had hold of him. It looked like a tree – and that was where his mind simply stalled because while, yes, it did look like a tree, it appeared to be a tree with a face.

“I – I – I –” was all Ralph could get out.

“SPEAK!” the Tree-With-A-Face said, “WHAT ARE YOU DOING IN MY WOODS?”

“I – I’m – oh, please, please don’t eat me.”

The Tree stared at him, perhaps surprised.

“Hrum!” it laughed. Laughed! “Hoom-doom-hooroom, why, oh why, would I want to eat you, whatever-you-are?”

“Uh,” said Ralph, nonplussed. “It’s generally what larger things do to smaller things that they’ve caught, in my experience.”

“Hum, hoo now, that is true, I suppose, yes…hoom. But I do not eat things like you. It is only Entdraft and such for me, and sunlight where it falls, yes.”

It peered at him with amber eyes that seemed to pin him the way he remembered pinning rabbits beneath his paws as a whelp.

“You are most strange,” it said, “leaf and twig, yes, very strange indeed. You are no hound that follows Men, that I can see, but no Warg that hunts the fields either. Hroom, hrum…you are perhaps, a wolf, I think.”

Its great craggy mouth parted in a smile that made Ralph curl up a bit, tucking his paws closer to his body.

“I am?” he squeaked.

“Oom, doom, yes.”

“Is…is that a good thing…or a bad thing?”

“Good or bad? Ah, mmm…that is not a question to be hasty in answering,” the Tree-creature said slowly. “After all, I do not know you very well.” It tilted its head ponderously. “You may be a very bad kind of beast…then again; you may prove to be quite a good one.”

It blinked at him, veeerrry slooowleey, and then added, “What is your name, little wolf?”

“Ralph,” said the ‘little wolf’, who was still under the impression he could be consumed at any moment.

“Hmmm. Ralph,” the Tree murmured considering. “It is a very quick, hasty sort of name. Mine is much longer, in Entish…but I suspect you do not know that tongue (very few do, you know), so it hardly matters. You, young Ralph, may call me Treebeard…and if your luck holds out, and the huorn do not begin to object to you…I suppose, hroom, yes, I suppose you may stay.”

“Oh,” said Ralph, slurring a little, “that’s – that’s really kind of you, Treebeard, sir, but…but do you think you could put me down, now? Only the blood is rushing to my head and ooh…”

Ralph passed out.

Treebeard stared at the limp wolf in surprise and, muttering an Entish approximation of ‘Oops,’ carefully laid him on the forest floor.

This is how Ralph came to be one to the two sole occupants of Fangorn Forest.

Apart from the semi-carnivorous trees, that is.