One Geek to Rule Them All

Hollin

At  the Ford of Bruinen they left the Road and turning southwards went on  by narrow paths among the folded landed. Their purpose was to hold this  course west of the Mountains for many miles and days. The country was  much rougher and more barren than in the green vale of the Great River  in Wilderland on the other side of the range, and their going would be  slow; but they hoped in this way to escape the notice of unfriendly  eyes. The spies of Sauron had hitherto seldom been seen in this empty  country, and the paths were little known except to the people of  Rivendell.

Gandalf walked in front, and with him went Aragorn, who  knew this land even in the dark. The others were in file behind, and  Legolas whose eyes were keen was the rearguard. The first part of their  journey was hard and dreary, and Frodo remembered little of it, save the  wind. For many sunless days an icy blast came from the Mountains in the  east, and no garment seemed able to keep out its searching fingers.  Though the company was well clad, they seldom felt warm, either moving  or at rest. The girls often huddled close to each other for  warmth, for they were used to far milder winters in the South of their  homeland and seemed to feel the cold more deeply. The Company slept uneasily during the middle of the day,  in some hollow of the land, or hidden under the tangled thorn-bushes  that grew in thickets in many places. In late afternoon they were roused  by the watch, and took their chief meal: cold and cheerless as a rule,  for they could seldom risk the lighting of a fire. In the evening they  went on again, always as nearly southward as they could find a way.

At  first it seemed to the hobbits that although they walked and stumbled  until they were weary, they were creeping forward like snails, and  getting nowhere. Each day the land looked much the same as it had the  day before. Yet steadily the mountains were drawing nearer. South of  Rivendell they rose ever higher, and bent westwards; and about the feet  of the main ridge there was tumbled an even wider land of bleak hills,  and deep valleys filled with turbulent waters. Paths were few and  winding, and led them often only to the edge of some sheer fall, or down  into treacherous swamps.

They had been a fortnight on the way  when the weather changed. The winds suddenly fell and then veered round  to the south. The swift-flowing clouds lifted and melted away, and the  sun came out, pale and bright. There came a cold clear dawn at the end  of a long stumbling night-march. The travelers reached a low ridge  crowned with ancient holly-trees whose grey-green trunks seemed to have  been built out of the very stone of the hills. Their dark leaves shone  and their berries glowed red in the light of the rising sun.

Away in  the south, Frodo could see the dim shapes of lofty mountains that seemed  now to stand across the path that the Company was taking. At the left  of this high range rose three peaks; the tallest and nearest stood up  like a tooth tipped with snow; its great, bare, northern precipice was  still largely in the shadow, but where the sunlight slanted upon it, it  glowed red. Devin smiled at the sight, for she recognized it as matching  the description of Hollin; and knowing that they had at last reached an  oasis of sorts made the view all the more beautiful to behold.

Gandalf stood at Frodo's side and looked out under his hand. "We  have done well," he said. "We have reached the borders of the  country that Men call Hollin; many Elves lived here in happier days,  when Eregion was its name. Five-and-forty leagues as the crow flies we  have come, though many long miles further our feet have walked. The land  and the weather will be milder now, but perhaps all the more  dangerous."

"Dangerous or not, a real sunrise is mighty welcome," said Frodo, throwing back his hood and letting the morning light fall on  his face.

"Amen to that!" Kitty exclaimed as she and Devin  followed suit. The pale sunlight seemed to breathe new life into Devin's  dark auburn hair, and it now glowed with touches of highlights  resembling smoldering embers.