Even Tom was subdued as they passed beneath the cover of the trees. The air was thick, it seemed. And the limbs of the trees creaked and groaned at them. Their dry leaves rattled menacingly at the Hobbits as they passed though no breeze touched them. There were dark things that scampered in the branches, and little bright eyes that seemed to follow them and blink out if one tried to look directly at them.
Ben shivered, and grabbed hold of Tom’s fur for reassurance as they walked along. This was just as creepy as the old wight’s barrow, he thought. But bigger. And he felt that the trees were thinking of him and saying to one another how they hated the nasty little two-legged creatures who had put up the Hedge against them.
They bit us with their axes! he could almost make out in the whisperings. They burned us!
The path ahead seemed to shift and change in the shadows, almost as if the trees were trying to guide their footsteps. The Ranger seemed unconcerned, and plunged on ahead in silence.
Ben leaned close to Mirabella. ‘I don’t know about this,’ he said, a shiver running up his spine as the path now appeared to turn right where formerly it had gone straight ahead. ‘Out of the frying pan and into the fire, it seems to me . . .’
[ July 01, 2003: Message edited by: piosenniel ]
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Eldest, that’s what I am . . . I knew the dark under the stars when it was fearless - before the Dark Lord came from Outside.
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