[piosenniel]

30 October

They kept off the main road that ran from Stock to Tukburrough. It’s not that they minded anyone seeing them - it was just what was the fun of walking along a road scaring the travelers on it, when they could be busy with the little weasels in their holes. Knocking some sense into them, flexing the Boss’ arm, showing ‘em who was who now in the Shire.

Assiram had grown up on a hardscrabble little holding on the outskirts of the old Osgiliath. Thugs there had hit his family’s and others holdings hard during those years. His parents eventually dying in one of the raids. It had made an impression on the scrawny little kid he’d been then. Best get on the side of power – ‘It’s the strong arm what gets ya what ya want,’ he remembered one of the ruffians rasping out at him in one of the early bands of roving men that had taken him in as an extra hand.

He’d kept that as his motto. Making himself strong and useful and making sure he always stood on the side of the one he saw as giving him the advantage. And now he was working with Ferny, and Ferny he could see worked for someone even more powerful. ‘Ferny!’ he spat on the ground as he thought about him. He had the ear of the big Boss now, but Assiram thought that after this little venture, perhaps Ferny could somehow quietly ‘disappear’, killed in the skirmish . . . and with him gone there were ‘possibilities’ that opened up . . . someone would be needed to fill his ‘position’ . . .

It was in such a mind that Assiram cursed at his two companions and ordered them on at a quicker pace.

Just east of the Great Smials, they holed up for a while in a small clearing near a stream. ‘We’ll camp here for now, and wait for the sun go down,’ he growled at them. They threw up a hasty, cheerless camp. ‘No fires,’ he’d growled at them. ‘I don’t want us to be seen.’

After a silent, cold meal of journey bread and dried meats washed down with water from the stream, he gathered the other two near him and spoke of the plan he’d been putting together as they drew near to Tukburrough.

‘We’ll go look it over tonight, when it gets dark,’ he told them. ‘There be plenty of stories the old Hobbit has a lot of gold and other treasures hidden away. No reason why we can’t make quite a haul from raiding him.’ he picked up a small rock and threw it toward one of trees at the edge of the clearing. It bounced off the bark with a satisfying thunk, leaving a gash in the trunk.

‘You two need to check on the number of men he has there – it’s a big place, we’ll need to know the number of rats that need taking care of, and how well armed they look.’ He waited for their nods of assent. ‘I’ll poke around and see how we can best get in and out of the nasty hole. Tomorrow we’ll hit ‘em hard . . .’

Assiram fished in his pack for his little whetstone and drew out his dagger. Snick . . . snick . . . the sound of the stone against blade edge added a sinister undercurrent to the natural sounds in the clearing.

Keeping his head down, bent on the sharpening of his weapons, Assiram’s oily voice wove another unpleasant note into the air. ‘Either of you have any questions . . . or suggestions . . .?’