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Old 05-22-2007, 02:49 AM   #4
piosenniel
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Dunwen's post

Normally, Sam Tunnelly liked Big Folk. After all, he'd lived in Bree since he'd been apprenticed at the age of fourteen to the town smith, who was a Man himself. But at this day's town meeting, their sheer size made it hard for a Hobbit, even one as strong as Sam, to get through. Alas, he'd arrived too late to get a seat on one of the benches, so he had to listen as best he could. Seeing over the heads of the crowd would be unlikely for any of the Little Folk; seeing through the press of bodies a matter of luck.

Some town meetings attracted only a scant number of people of either size, but this one was about the rash of mangled animal corpses that had shown up all over the Breeland and it was packed. Sam's own Dad, a farmer on the outskirts of town, had sent word only yesterday that they'd lost one of their two milk cows and that a barn cat had been found torn to bits. Losing the cow was a hard blow for the family, as the extra dairy goods had brought a small but steady income to the farm. But the cat was scarier, for they seldom strayed far from the barn, and the barn was an easy walk from the door of their burrow. According to the neighboring farmer who'd brought word to Sam, his Dad wasn't letting his mother or two younger sisters step outside unless he or his oldest son, Sam's brother Frodo, was with them.

Many others were as frightened as his father, he learned as he listened carefully to the talk in his immediate vicinity. Sam recognized several voices. He stood up to his full four feet when he heard his old friend Eric Wadell speaking. Sam approved of Eric's suggestion for a group of Breelandrs to find the thing and stop it. He frowned at the mayor's high-handedness in telling Eric he had to be one of the searchers, though. He'd bet a gold piece that Eric hadn't intended to go on the hunt. His friend had a mother and sisters to support, after all.

As talk went on in the meeting, Sam had a small debate with himself. He didn't like the idea of going out and looking for some unknown and bloodthirsty thing, but there were others, Big and Little, who volunteered to join Eric in doing just that. He thought of his Dad's fears for their womenfolk. It occured to him that he was probably the strongest hobbit in Bree and at only 34 years old, he had no one depending on him for support. He'd learned some woodcraft as a boy hunting with bow and arrow. And if one of his best friends was going --

"Hi!" The burly hobbit jumped and waved his hand to get the mayor's attention. "I'll go, too." He cleared his throat and added, "Sam Tunnelly, journeyman smith," somewhat unnecessarily, as he was known to most of Bree.

'Well, I've put my toes in the fire now,' he thought unhappily, as the meeting went on around him. 'I hope they don't get eaten along with the rest of me.'
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