Mushrooms 2
Title: Mushrooms 2
Author: Claudia
Rating: PG
Summary: Frodo mistakes mushrooms found in Hollin for a harmless species from the Shire.
Disclaimer: Don’t own anything. Don’t make any money off it.
Chapter One
“Oh, Mr. Frodo.” Sam’s voice came from a great distance, but he was there, rubbing Frodo’s back and holding him by the shoulders, keeping him from pitching forward into whirling darkness as his stomach ejected everything inside with violent urgency.
“Sam…” Frodo clutched his stomach as a wicked cramp twisted his bowels and he knew he had to do something much more undignified than throwing up. “Sam…I think the mushrooms…I think maybe they aren’t harmless…” He looked at Sam through blurry vision. “Help me, please. See to it that nobody sees.”
With shaking hands, he fumbled with the button to his breeches while Sam unclasped his braces. He was so weak, and every movement, however small, took all his strength.
Frodo had barely pulled down his breeches when burning liquid gushed from his backside. He sat crouched, shaking with the pain that curled in his belly, holding his throbbing head in his hands, unable to move, even after he finished.
“There, now.” Sam held his trembling shoulders. “Let’s get you cleaned up and back to the fire and settle you down on some blankets. Sam’s here and I mean to take good care of you.”
“Frodo? Sam?” Aragorn’s voice startled the hobbits. “What is it?”
Frodo’s cheeks heated. Oh, to have Aragorn, beloved guide and heir to the throne of Gondor, see the Ringbearer in such an undignified state. He struggled to pull his breeches up, but Sam stepped in front of him, shielding him from Aragorn’s keen gaze.
“Mr. Frodo’s awfully sick,” Sam said, planting his hands on his hips, “and he’ll need your help. But first give us half a moment so I can help him get dressed again.”
“Mushrooms,” Frodo managed, hoping Aragorn could hear his weak voice. “Throw them away…don’t let them put them in the stew…and don’t let any of the other hobbits get to them. Especially Pippin. He’s bound to try to sneak one.”
“I shall have a look at the mushrooms,” Aragorn’s voice sounded troubled. “And I’ll have the younger hobbits set up a bed. Bring him out Sam, as quickly as you can.” He slipped away with a mere rustle of leaves.
“Thank you,” Frodo said, sagging against Sam. He was relieved that Aragorn, or for that matter, any other member of the fellowship, even Merry and Pippin, had not seen him crouching in such undignified misery, his bare backside jutting out.
Sam handed Frodo a few thick leaves and Frodo cleaned himself the best he could. Still trembling and weak, he pulled his breeches back up, fastened his braces, and collapsed heavily against Sam. His stomach had already begun to twist and turn again and he could not stop shivering. He had no strength in his legs, and the distance to the campfire seemed impossible to navigate.
As Frodo and Sam stumbled out from behind the bushes, Boromir strode toward them, his face open with concern. “Sam, please allow me to help.”
Frodo’s face had broken into sweat, and he did not think he could manage even one more step to the campfire. His younger cousins scurried to spread out his bedroll, casting worried glances in his direction.
“I’ve got him,” Sam said to Boromir.
“I can’t make it,” Frodo said to Sam. “I’m sorry.” He nodded to Boromir. “If it’s not too much of a bother.”
“Gladly will I bear you.”
Sam stepped away, allowing Boromir to gather Frodo in his enormous arms, lifting him with remarkable ease. Frodo buried his clammy brow into the folds of Boromir’s tunic, taking comfort in his strength and leather-scented warmth.
Boromir set him down into the bedrolls the younger hobbits had set up beside the fire. He unclasped his fur-lined cloak and lay it on him with utmost tenderness.
“Boromir…you’ll catch a chill,” Frodo whispered.
Boromir shook his head and rested his hand on Frodo’s sweaty cheek. “Fear not. I’ve endured far worse. You are in much greater need of it, Ringbearer.”
In truth, Frodo was glad, for he took great comfort in the furry weight pressed on him. He nuzzled his face into its warmth, grasping for any comfort at all as the pain in his stomach began to build with new vigor.
Aragorn knelt beside him and peered into his eyes. “Frodo, where did you come upon the toadstools?”
“Toadstools?” Frodo asked, thoroughly confused. Toadstools were the things of fairy tales, stories told to frighten young hobbits away from mushroom farm thieving. At any rate, he had never heard of a hobbit dying from mushroom ingestion, although once Pippin had grown ill from eating too many mushrooms at a spring festival.
“I’ll fling them all over the ridge,” Sam said, clenching his fists in anger. “I might have known that even the mushrooms in this miserable country are poisonous.”
Aragorn touched Sam’s sleeve. “Do not throw them out, Sam. I must study them. Some toadstools are deadlier than others.”
“Deadly?” Sam’s voice choked, and the anger flickered out of his eyes, replaced by raw fear.
“I’m afraid so,” Aragorn said, looking down at Sam in pity. “In the wilderness, far outside the Shire, there exist wicked twins of harmless mushrooms. These toadstools can easily trick folk who don’t have a trained eye. Gandalf and I have been remiss.” Gandalf joined them, a troubled look in his eyes, and Aragorn directed the last bit to him. “I’m afraid the hobbits’ love for mushrooms was not foremost on my mind when considering the perils of our road.”
“Deadly poisonous?” Sam asked again. “Is he going to die?”
Merry and Pippin gathered around Frodo, both pale with concern. Frodo wished they would all leave him in peace. His stomach clenched and rolled, and he broke into new sweat. He swallowed against yet another urge to vomit. Oh, he did not want to get sick in front of all the fellowship and yet he lacked the strength to bolt to his previous haven.
“What’s wrong with him?” Pippin asked.
“Poisoning.” Aragorn turned to the other hobbits, and his face was grim “Did any of you other hobbits eat those mushrooms?”
“No,” Pippin said, shaking his head. Tears filled his eyes. “He wouldn’t let us. Is he going to die?”
The other members of the fellowship watched in quiet pity. A shadow had fallen on all their hearts. The Ringbearer lay ill and possibly dying. Aside from the grief at the passing of a beloved hobbit and member of the company, especially by the hobbits and Strider, for whom Frodo had become dear, there lay the question of the Ring and its fate.
“I shall do all I can for him,” Aragorn said.
“Do not worry,” Merry said, and his eyes hardened. “He’s pulled through far worse. Thanks to you, Strider. He has strength that none of the rest of us do.”
“You are right, Merry,” Gandalf said, patting his shoulder. “Fear not. He shall pull through this.”
“He’s been through too much already,” Sam said, tears forming in his eyes.
“Sam,” Aragorn said brusquely. “Go now and boil water.” After Sam had left, he added to the others. “It is best to keep Sam as busy as possible.”
He peeled Boromir’s cloak from Frodo and lifted him from the bedroll.
A chill took Frodo and he groaned, reaching in vain for the cloak with weak fingers. It had fallen just out of reach and he had neither the strength to call for it or pull it back on him.
“In a moment” Aragorn said. He cradled Frodo before turning him over so that he rested on his stomach over Aragorn’s bent knee.
Aragorn leaned forward and spoke in Frodo’s ear. “Here you must trust me. I am going to do something very unpleasant, to force you to eject as much as possible from your stomach. We must act quickly to get as much of the poison out of you as possible. Do you trust me?”
Frodo shuddered as new cold sweat broke out on his forehead. His stomach cramped more so than before as his belly was pressed against Aragorn’s leg and he dangled headfirst over his knee. He managed a weak smile that Aragorn could not see. “I…will…always trust you.”
Two large fingers forced themselves into Frodo’s mouth and groped down his throat. Frodo gagged and clutched the dirt just below. His belly shuddered and contracted. Aragorn yanked his fingers out as he threw up several times in a row. After Frodo spit the last of it out, the fingers returned. Frodo had a miserable urge to bite down on those cruel fingers, to snap them right off, anything to stop this constant misery, the hot rush up his throat, and the intense pain in his stomach as he ejected time after time. Again and again, he vomited until his mouth burned and nothing came out but strings of spit.
At last, Aragorn laid Frodo back on the bedroll and set Boromir’s cloak over him. Frodo shivered, chilled to the bone, but he forced open his eyes. He had to tell Aragorn something…so important. “Throw them…do not use them.”
“I know,” Aragorn said. “Nobody else has eaten them.” He walked away, toward the water that had begun to boil over the fire.
“My fault…” Frodo said, burying his head in the folds of the bedroll. “Shouldn’t…Pippin..he didn’t steal any, did he?”
“Relax, cousin,” Pippin said with a grin that looked like too much effort to be genuinely cheerful. “For once I listened to you.”
“Ah…” Frodo smiled, as relieved as he could with so much pain in his stomach. “That is new.”
Aragorn lifted Frodo’s head, supporting his neck with one arm and guiding a mug of hot tea to his mouth. “What I’ve put in the tea will absorb whatever remains of the poison in your body.” Frodo managed only a few more sips before his stomach cramped again, that twisting, knotting pain that rendered him sweaty and helpless. He clutched his belly and knew that he was going to have to gain the strength to climb to his feet and flee to the privacy behind the bushes again. “Aragorn…” He pushed the mug of tea away and clutched at the Ranger’s sleeve. “I need…” Aragorn’s face blurred and doubled. “Help me…Sam…”
Sam knelt beside Aragorn and pulled Frodo to him, out of Aragorn’s grip. Frodo sagged weakly against him. “He needs privacy, let me help him up,”
“He shouldn’t be moved,” Aragorn said.
Sam gazed hard at Aragorn. “He needs his dignity.” Frodo was too weak to feel properly humiliated.
Aragorn helped Sam heave Frodo up, and Frodo and Sam staggered toward the shelter. Frodo was so dizzy that he would have fallen into oblivion without Sam’s steady arm around him. He again barely got his breeches down before heat gushed out again in large, cramping waves of agony. He nearly wept from the pain.
What if he should die? He felt poorly enough that it was all too possible. Aragorn had mentioned deadly poison. Oh, to have survived the blade of the Enemy only to be felled by a cruel mushroom - it was too much.
“Bilbo…” Frodo whispered. “I promised…his book…Sam?”
“Don’t you worry about no book. You just think about getting better.”
Frodo had lost his strength to speak, but he managed, “I’m not going to get better.”
“Just you stop that that nonsense. Here, let’s get your breeches back on and get you back to bed. I’m sure you’ll feel better in a short while.”
“I want…you…you take the Ring, should I die.”
Afterwards, utterly weak but less uncomfortable, Frodo leaned on Sam and was quickly captured and lifted by Aragorn, who carried him back to the bed.
Gandalf felt Frodo’s brow. “I feel responsible for this, Aragorn. I should have warned the hobbits. They had no way of knowing about toadstools. What can you do for him? It’s a cruel thing to be ill so far from bed and hearth.”
“He has endured worse,” Aragorn said. “Forget not what he endured from Weathertop to Rivendell.”
He held a cup of water to Frodo’s parched lips. “Come now,” he said. “Small sips.”
“No…” Frodo turned his lips away. The act of swallowing took far more strength than he had just now.
“Sam, hold his head steady.” Aragorn fed him a spoonful of water. Frodo gagged and spit it up.
“Let us try it again,”
“What will happen now?” Boromir asked in a low voice that he thought went unheard by the hobbits. “What happens if the Ringbearer does not make it?”
“Don’t you say that!” Sam said fiercely, startling the warrior. “Mr. Frodo is a fighter and he’ll come right through this. He’s seen worse poison than this.”
“Hush, Boromir,” Aragorn said, his lips tight.
“It’s all right,” Frodo said. “I know I might die. Please. Just…” He took Aragorn’s hand and squeezed. “If it looks like there is no hope, please …your sword…end it for me quickly.”
“You know not what you say,” Aragorn said. “Few mortals can claim such sturdiness of heart and spirit as I have seen in you.”
“We cannot go on tomorrow,” Gandalf said, looking eastward. “I had hoped to move again by daylight, but Frodo should not be moved. He cannot walk.”
“I can bear him,” Aragorn said. “If move we must.”
Gandalf nodded, looking at the sky in growing apprehension. “We may have need of it. We yet may. The sky has a foul cast to it. Unfriendly eyes have turned to us, even here in Hollin.”
Frodo’s stomach gave another violent heave. He was so sick. He could not imagine continuing, even being carried by Aragorn. The very motion of marching over the craggy terrain made his stomach twist and turn, leaving him dizzy and utterly miserable. The evening wind was ice-edged, full of malice, and snowflakes spit from the sky, landing on his face like barbed claws. He groaned as his stomach cramped. At least the need to relieve his bowels was not urgent and he closed his eyes, willing the dizziness to abate.
He fell into dark dreams. In his dreams he walked and walked through heavy darkness, always following Gandalf’s staff that glowed with a moon-like light. Nobody spoke, but there was an undercurrent of doom and fear, as if they were about to walk into a trap.
I’m tired, when shall we rest? He asked, but nobody seemed inclined to rest. His stomach cramped and ached, and still he had to walk on and on with no rest. Fire and shadow came upon them, and Gandalf slipped and fell into a fissure.
Frodo snapped awake, breathing heavily, searching desperately for Gandalf. The Ring lay heavy and cold on his chest.
“…Steady, Frodo, it’s all right…you’ll do harm to yourself.”
Aragorn’s hands, rough and large, were on his cheeks, holding him still. “You are safe.”
The sky was black. No stars blinked down on them.
“Gandalf?”
“I am here,” Gandalf leaned over him, and Frodo clutched his hand, weeping weakly. “I am here.”
TBC
Go on to next part
Author: Claudia
Rating: PG
Summary: Frodo mistakes mushrooms found in Hollin for a harmless species from the Shire.
Disclaimer: Don’t own anything. Don’t make any money off it.
Chapter One
“Oh, Mr. Frodo.” Sam’s voice came from a great distance, but he was there, rubbing Frodo’s back and holding him by the shoulders, keeping him from pitching forward into whirling darkness as his stomach ejected everything inside with violent urgency.
“Sam…” Frodo clutched his stomach as a wicked cramp twisted his bowels and he knew he had to do something much more undignified than throwing up. “Sam…I think the mushrooms…I think maybe they aren’t harmless…” He looked at Sam through blurry vision. “Help me, please. See to it that nobody sees.”
With shaking hands, he fumbled with the button to his breeches while Sam unclasped his braces. He was so weak, and every movement, however small, took all his strength.
Frodo had barely pulled down his breeches when burning liquid gushed from his backside. He sat crouched, shaking with the pain that curled in his belly, holding his throbbing head in his hands, unable to move, even after he finished.
“There, now.” Sam held his trembling shoulders. “Let’s get you cleaned up and back to the fire and settle you down on some blankets. Sam’s here and I mean to take good care of you.”
“Frodo? Sam?” Aragorn’s voice startled the hobbits. “What is it?”
Frodo’s cheeks heated. Oh, to have Aragorn, beloved guide and heir to the throne of Gondor, see the Ringbearer in such an undignified state. He struggled to pull his breeches up, but Sam stepped in front of him, shielding him from Aragorn’s keen gaze.
“Mr. Frodo’s awfully sick,” Sam said, planting his hands on his hips, “and he’ll need your help. But first give us half a moment so I can help him get dressed again.”
“Mushrooms,” Frodo managed, hoping Aragorn could hear his weak voice. “Throw them away…don’t let them put them in the stew…and don’t let any of the other hobbits get to them. Especially Pippin. He’s bound to try to sneak one.”
“I shall have a look at the mushrooms,” Aragorn’s voice sounded troubled. “And I’ll have the younger hobbits set up a bed. Bring him out Sam, as quickly as you can.” He slipped away with a mere rustle of leaves.
“Thank you,” Frodo said, sagging against Sam. He was relieved that Aragorn, or for that matter, any other member of the fellowship, even Merry and Pippin, had not seen him crouching in such undignified misery, his bare backside jutting out.
Sam handed Frodo a few thick leaves and Frodo cleaned himself the best he could. Still trembling and weak, he pulled his breeches back up, fastened his braces, and collapsed heavily against Sam. His stomach had already begun to twist and turn again and he could not stop shivering. He had no strength in his legs, and the distance to the campfire seemed impossible to navigate.
As Frodo and Sam stumbled out from behind the bushes, Boromir strode toward them, his face open with concern. “Sam, please allow me to help.”
Frodo’s face had broken into sweat, and he did not think he could manage even one more step to the campfire. His younger cousins scurried to spread out his bedroll, casting worried glances in his direction.
“I’ve got him,” Sam said to Boromir.
“I can’t make it,” Frodo said to Sam. “I’m sorry.” He nodded to Boromir. “If it’s not too much of a bother.”
“Gladly will I bear you.”
Sam stepped away, allowing Boromir to gather Frodo in his enormous arms, lifting him with remarkable ease. Frodo buried his clammy brow into the folds of Boromir’s tunic, taking comfort in his strength and leather-scented warmth.
Boromir set him down into the bedrolls the younger hobbits had set up beside the fire. He unclasped his fur-lined cloak and lay it on him with utmost tenderness.
“Boromir…you’ll catch a chill,” Frodo whispered.
Boromir shook his head and rested his hand on Frodo’s sweaty cheek. “Fear not. I’ve endured far worse. You are in much greater need of it, Ringbearer.”
In truth, Frodo was glad, for he took great comfort in the furry weight pressed on him. He nuzzled his face into its warmth, grasping for any comfort at all as the pain in his stomach began to build with new vigor.
Aragorn knelt beside him and peered into his eyes. “Frodo, where did you come upon the toadstools?”
“Toadstools?” Frodo asked, thoroughly confused. Toadstools were the things of fairy tales, stories told to frighten young hobbits away from mushroom farm thieving. At any rate, he had never heard of a hobbit dying from mushroom ingestion, although once Pippin had grown ill from eating too many mushrooms at a spring festival.
“I’ll fling them all over the ridge,” Sam said, clenching his fists in anger. “I might have known that even the mushrooms in this miserable country are poisonous.”
Aragorn touched Sam’s sleeve. “Do not throw them out, Sam. I must study them. Some toadstools are deadlier than others.”
“Deadly?” Sam’s voice choked, and the anger flickered out of his eyes, replaced by raw fear.
“I’m afraid so,” Aragorn said, looking down at Sam in pity. “In the wilderness, far outside the Shire, there exist wicked twins of harmless mushrooms. These toadstools can easily trick folk who don’t have a trained eye. Gandalf and I have been remiss.” Gandalf joined them, a troubled look in his eyes, and Aragorn directed the last bit to him. “I’m afraid the hobbits’ love for mushrooms was not foremost on my mind when considering the perils of our road.”
“Deadly poisonous?” Sam asked again. “Is he going to die?”
Merry and Pippin gathered around Frodo, both pale with concern. Frodo wished they would all leave him in peace. His stomach clenched and rolled, and he broke into new sweat. He swallowed against yet another urge to vomit. Oh, he did not want to get sick in front of all the fellowship and yet he lacked the strength to bolt to his previous haven.
“What’s wrong with him?” Pippin asked.
“Poisoning.” Aragorn turned to the other hobbits, and his face was grim “Did any of you other hobbits eat those mushrooms?”
“No,” Pippin said, shaking his head. Tears filled his eyes. “He wouldn’t let us. Is he going to die?”
The other members of the fellowship watched in quiet pity. A shadow had fallen on all their hearts. The Ringbearer lay ill and possibly dying. Aside from the grief at the passing of a beloved hobbit and member of the company, especially by the hobbits and Strider, for whom Frodo had become dear, there lay the question of the Ring and its fate.
“I shall do all I can for him,” Aragorn said.
“Do not worry,” Merry said, and his eyes hardened. “He’s pulled through far worse. Thanks to you, Strider. He has strength that none of the rest of us do.”
“You are right, Merry,” Gandalf said, patting his shoulder. “Fear not. He shall pull through this.”
“He’s been through too much already,” Sam said, tears forming in his eyes.
“Sam,” Aragorn said brusquely. “Go now and boil water.” After Sam had left, he added to the others. “It is best to keep Sam as busy as possible.”
He peeled Boromir’s cloak from Frodo and lifted him from the bedroll.
A chill took Frodo and he groaned, reaching in vain for the cloak with weak fingers. It had fallen just out of reach and he had neither the strength to call for it or pull it back on him.
“In a moment” Aragorn said. He cradled Frodo before turning him over so that he rested on his stomach over Aragorn’s bent knee.
Aragorn leaned forward and spoke in Frodo’s ear. “Here you must trust me. I am going to do something very unpleasant, to force you to eject as much as possible from your stomach. We must act quickly to get as much of the poison out of you as possible. Do you trust me?”
Frodo shuddered as new cold sweat broke out on his forehead. His stomach cramped more so than before as his belly was pressed against Aragorn’s leg and he dangled headfirst over his knee. He managed a weak smile that Aragorn could not see. “I…will…always trust you.”
Two large fingers forced themselves into Frodo’s mouth and groped down his throat. Frodo gagged and clutched the dirt just below. His belly shuddered and contracted. Aragorn yanked his fingers out as he threw up several times in a row. After Frodo spit the last of it out, the fingers returned. Frodo had a miserable urge to bite down on those cruel fingers, to snap them right off, anything to stop this constant misery, the hot rush up his throat, and the intense pain in his stomach as he ejected time after time. Again and again, he vomited until his mouth burned and nothing came out but strings of spit.
At last, Aragorn laid Frodo back on the bedroll and set Boromir’s cloak over him. Frodo shivered, chilled to the bone, but he forced open his eyes. He had to tell Aragorn something…so important. “Throw them…do not use them.”
“I know,” Aragorn said. “Nobody else has eaten them.” He walked away, toward the water that had begun to boil over the fire.
“My fault…” Frodo said, burying his head in the folds of the bedroll. “Shouldn’t…Pippin..he didn’t steal any, did he?”
“Relax, cousin,” Pippin said with a grin that looked like too much effort to be genuinely cheerful. “For once I listened to you.”
“Ah…” Frodo smiled, as relieved as he could with so much pain in his stomach. “That is new.”
Aragorn lifted Frodo’s head, supporting his neck with one arm and guiding a mug of hot tea to his mouth. “What I’ve put in the tea will absorb whatever remains of the poison in your body.” Frodo managed only a few more sips before his stomach cramped again, that twisting, knotting pain that rendered him sweaty and helpless. He clutched his belly and knew that he was going to have to gain the strength to climb to his feet and flee to the privacy behind the bushes again. “Aragorn…” He pushed the mug of tea away and clutched at the Ranger’s sleeve. “I need…” Aragorn’s face blurred and doubled. “Help me…Sam…”
Sam knelt beside Aragorn and pulled Frodo to him, out of Aragorn’s grip. Frodo sagged weakly against him. “He needs privacy, let me help him up,”
“He shouldn’t be moved,” Aragorn said.
Sam gazed hard at Aragorn. “He needs his dignity.” Frodo was too weak to feel properly humiliated.
Aragorn helped Sam heave Frodo up, and Frodo and Sam staggered toward the shelter. Frodo was so dizzy that he would have fallen into oblivion without Sam’s steady arm around him. He again barely got his breeches down before heat gushed out again in large, cramping waves of agony. He nearly wept from the pain.
What if he should die? He felt poorly enough that it was all too possible. Aragorn had mentioned deadly poison. Oh, to have survived the blade of the Enemy only to be felled by a cruel mushroom - it was too much.
“Bilbo…” Frodo whispered. “I promised…his book…Sam?”
“Don’t you worry about no book. You just think about getting better.”
Frodo had lost his strength to speak, but he managed, “I’m not going to get better.”
“Just you stop that that nonsense. Here, let’s get your breeches back on and get you back to bed. I’m sure you’ll feel better in a short while.”
“I want…you…you take the Ring, should I die.”
Afterwards, utterly weak but less uncomfortable, Frodo leaned on Sam and was quickly captured and lifted by Aragorn, who carried him back to the bed.
Gandalf felt Frodo’s brow. “I feel responsible for this, Aragorn. I should have warned the hobbits. They had no way of knowing about toadstools. What can you do for him? It’s a cruel thing to be ill so far from bed and hearth.”
“He has endured worse,” Aragorn said. “Forget not what he endured from Weathertop to Rivendell.”
He held a cup of water to Frodo’s parched lips. “Come now,” he said. “Small sips.”
“No…” Frodo turned his lips away. The act of swallowing took far more strength than he had just now.
“Sam, hold his head steady.” Aragorn fed him a spoonful of water. Frodo gagged and spit it up.
“Let us try it again,”
“What will happen now?” Boromir asked in a low voice that he thought went unheard by the hobbits. “What happens if the Ringbearer does not make it?”
“Don’t you say that!” Sam said fiercely, startling the warrior. “Mr. Frodo is a fighter and he’ll come right through this. He’s seen worse poison than this.”
“Hush, Boromir,” Aragorn said, his lips tight.
“It’s all right,” Frodo said. “I know I might die. Please. Just…” He took Aragorn’s hand and squeezed. “If it looks like there is no hope, please …your sword…end it for me quickly.”
“You know not what you say,” Aragorn said. “Few mortals can claim such sturdiness of heart and spirit as I have seen in you.”
“We cannot go on tomorrow,” Gandalf said, looking eastward. “I had hoped to move again by daylight, but Frodo should not be moved. He cannot walk.”
“I can bear him,” Aragorn said. “If move we must.”
Gandalf nodded, looking at the sky in growing apprehension. “We may have need of it. We yet may. The sky has a foul cast to it. Unfriendly eyes have turned to us, even here in Hollin.”
Frodo’s stomach gave another violent heave. He was so sick. He could not imagine continuing, even being carried by Aragorn. The very motion of marching over the craggy terrain made his stomach twist and turn, leaving him dizzy and utterly miserable. The evening wind was ice-edged, full of malice, and snowflakes spit from the sky, landing on his face like barbed claws. He groaned as his stomach cramped. At least the need to relieve his bowels was not urgent and he closed his eyes, willing the dizziness to abate.
He fell into dark dreams. In his dreams he walked and walked through heavy darkness, always following Gandalf’s staff that glowed with a moon-like light. Nobody spoke, but there was an undercurrent of doom and fear, as if they were about to walk into a trap.
I’m tired, when shall we rest? He asked, but nobody seemed inclined to rest. His stomach cramped and ached, and still he had to walk on and on with no rest. Fire and shadow came upon them, and Gandalf slipped and fell into a fissure.
Frodo snapped awake, breathing heavily, searching desperately for Gandalf. The Ring lay heavy and cold on his chest.
“…Steady, Frodo, it’s all right…you’ll do harm to yourself.”
Aragorn’s hands, rough and large, were on his cheeks, holding him still. “You are safe.”
The sky was black. No stars blinked down on them.
“Gandalf?”
“I am here,” Gandalf leaned over him, and Frodo clutched his hand, weeping weakly. “I am here.”
TBC
Go on to next part