[Fordim Hedgethistle]

The hobbits’ headlong rush into the forest was severely stayed the moment they passed under the trees. All three ponies shied away from the trees, and the branches that had before seemed high enough to let them pass beneath lowered and waved in their faces, catching and scratching at their eyes and mouths. Fordogrim lashed out against the forest with his cane, batting the branches away from him, but the low whispering in the leaves came back to him like hissing laughter. Soon, Stout and Daisy had slowed to a walk, and even Kalimac’s thoroughbred was forced to stumble with the work ponies through the roots. With the initial rush of terror and ferocity gone, a cold and tingling fear settled on them all as they realised what they were doing: before them lay the Forest and in it were Wolves. They were only three against that. But also in the Forest were their children. Fear might have dogged their very steps, but not one of them even considered turning back.

After the initial volley of howls an eerie silence had fallen on the Forest. Not knowing which way to go, the three hobbits headed more or less in the direction of the last sounds they had heard. The further they went, the harder it was to move in a straight line, as the trees seemed to crowd them about, forcing them always to their right and back toward the edge of the Forest. Fordogrim lashed out with his cane against the trunk of a large oak, crying out, “We want nothing to do with you! We’re only in here a-trying to save our little ones!” but the oak tree only shivered with a treey kind of rage and the woods crowded in about them more closely than before.

Harold spoke quietly, his voice coming from the darkness to Fordogrim like the pale cry of a phantom. “Father, perhaps we should try not to upset anything in here and simply look for the children.” Fordogrim nodded; he knew his son could not see him, but he also knew that a lack of reply on his part would be taken by Harold as assent.

They pressed on for a few more minutes but it quickly became apparent that they were lost. Worse, they no longer had any idea of which way their children lay, and which way lay their danger. They tried crying out the names of the children, but the leaves stifled their voices and their calls fell meaningless and cold to the forest floor. Without a word passing between them, they stopped dead and the trees pulled in around them like the woody bars of a prison. “Well,” Fordogrim began bitterly, “what are we to do now?” He felt old in that moment, old and stupid and useless. He knew that if he had not charged into the woods ahead of the others, his son probably would have taken the time to organise something more useful, and that ridiculous Whitfoot would not have felt compelled to do them both one better and ride in after them. What was I thinking? Better to have stayed behind with the women and children and let them’s that are able-bodied have come in here.

It was, surprisingly enough (to Fordogrim at least) Kalimac who came up with a solution. Rather than crying out the names of his son and daughter, he tilted back his head and let out a terrifyingly good imitation of a wolf’s howl. It rose into the treetops about them and scattered through the boughs, raising the very hackles on Fordogrim’s neck. As the sound echoed off into the woods, the elderly hobbit looked at the Whitfoot and angrily demanded, “Just why in the name of sense did you go and do something like that for?” But Fordogrim was immediately given his answer in the form of answering calls coming from somewhere to their left, and slightly behind them. Wheeling their mounts, the three hobbits charged into the woods once more and made for the sounds of the wolves, which were now coming almost continuously. Soon, however, they had changed into the unmistakable growls and whines of animals on the hunt.

In a state of blind white panic, the hobbits pushed on through the trees until without warning they emerged into a small clearing that was the scene of their greatest nightmares. Standing in the middle of the clearing were four large and hungry-looking wolves. As Fordogrim, Harold and Kalimac entered the clearing, the wolves stopped and looked toward them. The largest growled at the others in their wolf-tongue and the three nearest turned and, snarling, began to advance on them, while the remaining monster brought its belly close to the ground and slunk off into the forest in search of its prey.