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Old 08-28-2006, 07:07 PM   #147
Hilde Bracegirdle
Relic of Wandering Days
 
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Join Date: Dec 2002
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Hilde Bracegirdle has just left Hobbiton.
Carl

The trip back to the slavers’ camp had seemed rapid enough now that Carl knew what lay ahead, and they reached its outskirts even before the moon had climbed to its apex. But having noted the guards’ positioning, the company decided it was time to continue on foot. And so dismounting, they prepared themselves accordingly, entrusting their horses to Athwen’s care.

Carl, his arms laden with an assortment of tools in a blanket, met Vrór as the dwarf slid down from Rôg’s horse, landing firmly in the dust beside it. “Are we ready then, Master Carl?” the dwarf whispered, straightening his grey tunic and baldric with an efficient tug, before attempting to relieve the nodding hobbit of some of the burden. Together they sorted through what they had at their disposal, while Rôg slipped to the ground behind them, securing the horse and wrapping his cloak about him as he took in his surroundings. But as Carl and Vrór discussed the merits of each item, divvying up the tools between them, Rôg wandered off. And when at last the hobbit glanced that way again, Dorran happened to be standing just where Rôg had been.

“Ah Mister Dorran, there you are!” Carl said. “If you’ll both just give me a moment,” he muttered half to himself, thrusting the lower portion of a spud bar under his belt so that it hung there like a half drawn sword. Patting his side, he seemed satisfied with the positioning of it, but was at a loss with where to put the small spade head in his other hand.

Soon four of the fellowship had slipped over the edge of the gulley and after a short run, stood at the point where the water had been found, and where Vrór had heard the child’s voice. Wasting no time, they made quick work of enlarging the hole, Dorran and Lindir guarding them as the two others slipped underground as soon as they were able, and when they had quite disappeared from view, the entrance to the hole was carefully covered with the blanket, so that no light could escape.

Once inside a torch was lit, and Carl and Vrór found themselves in a long low ceilinged chamber that was filled ankle deep with cold water. One end of it seemed to follow the dry streambed south, but the other worked its way further down, in toward the center of the camp, and that was the direction the two sloshed hurriedly. Surely, the voice they had heard had carried from a point somewhere along that route.

But as they made their way, their breath echoing down the tall and narrow corridor, the stream grew higher, until it was knee high as they came to a wall of sheer rock that blocked their path. The water turned sharply at the foot of the wall only to tumble into a deep cleft a short distance away. Both the hobbit and the dwarf stood pondering their next move when a loud boom and crisp crackling was heard quite clearly overhead. Vrór lifted the torch as high as he could reach; and the flame of it streamed back showing a small open chink high in the rock wall.

“Good timing, I’ll give us that, but it will take more than a few hours to get through this bulkhead!” the dwarf said gruffly, as he lowered the torch to search the rest of the crevices.

“Yes, I was hoping we might run into more meat and less bone,” Carl sighed, hanging his head at what now seemed an insurmountable obstacle. But as he stared at the depths that washed the foot of the wall, he thought he saw a faint glow appear in the water, and then vanish. Carl thought he must be imagining things, but still he quickly squatted down, so that only his head was bobbing at the surface, and with his hands he felt along the face of the wall. There he found another and much larger chink below the surface of the water, one that he felt he could fit through with some room to spare.

“I’ve found another hole,” he exclaimed. “A larger one…down here at the base!”

Just as Vrór joined him to help assess this route’s potential as well as its danger, they heard a young man's voice. “Look there now, there is something on the other side.”

“I’m going to try to get through,” the hobbit announced as he started breathing deeply – partly to overcome a fear of drowning that had been carefully and methodically instilled in him by his maternal aunt.

“Wait Master Carl,” Vrór reasoned. “We don’t know who or what might be on the other side. If it is the captives, they could have company at the moment. It might not be a good to turn up without listening first.”

Though Carl felt this good advice, he did not at the moment care to think, lest he lose courage for it. So letting the tools drop in the water, he also followed suit, disappearing under its surface. And holding his breath, he found the hole again with his hands.

Pushing himself through, the hobbit almost hit his head as another ridge of rock loomed suddenly before him in the water. Carl began to think perhaps it was impassible, and that the glow had simply been the reflection of the torch Vrór had held. But spinning quickly in the chink so that he was now looking up, he saw the dim silhouette of a figure bend over him on the dry side of the silvery surface, and he remembered Vrór’s words of warning. But he was also out of breath, and as he stared upward, not daring to move, a hand plunged into the water grabbing him hold of him, and he scrambled to his feet, to face a dark, black haired youth.

Last edited by Hilde Bracegirdle; 09-05-2006 at 10:51 AM.
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