Chapter 4: Boromir Sees A Horse

“It does not look so fell as I feared,” Boromir said, looking about himself at the thick life of Greenwood.

“No, it’s not so bad at all, and even better since He is gone, isn’t it? O smell that! Isn’t it nice, gollum!” His stomach rumbled loud enough to be heard despite how close he was to the ground. Sméagol coughed awkwardly and looked away, tucking his hair behind his ear. Boromir wondered just what he had smelled. “This way, this way.” He darted ahead and Boromir followed. He picked his way along, finding his walking-stick to be of more use than ever, as he could use it to keep him from soft pits and treacherous roots. Indeed, the Ithilien Rangers carried walking-sticks for such purposes though their legs were quite sound.

Suddenly there was a cracking noise- ahead Boromir could just make out Sméagol’s slender figure rising to its full height and yanking at a low branch, which was far enough over his head to just barely be within his reach, but would surely have obstructed Boromir’s path. It snapped off and Sméagol threw it aside.

Boromir ought to stop being surprised that Sméagol was so much stronger than his size and weight would suggest. He understood now that Sam and Frodo had feared him, and possibly always would have. That was why a certain tension had existed between them even after Sméagol had chosen to thoroughly throw his life and lot in with their cause. It was much like the reasons why no apology, no reconciliation would make Sam entirely comfortable in Boromir’s presence. Boromir’s strength was such that he could never relinquish his power to harm.

Sméagol came skipping back, smiling a fanged smile. “A path! It goes East. It is old and broken, and no one travels on it but it will be easier for Boromir, it is not so choked and crabbed up.”

“That is well! I hear it is dangerous, straying from the path in Greenwood.”

“Ach! No more dangerous than anywhere else I suppose. Come, come, this way.”

The path was narrow, but much improved from wandering in the undergrowth. Sméagol had been leading him the best way, but it had been the best out of bad options.

“There, that is much better,” said Sméagol.

“Yes indeed!” Boromir peered down the path, and it was like looking into a green tunnel. The wood seemed ancient and fey, but not so much as the Golden Wood.

Sméagol’s stomach was growling again. Boromir glanced down at him. “Will you not take some of my rations?” He suspected his friend had eaten poorly in the Brown Lands. He had accepted a little of Boromir’s food there.

“No, no, no need.”

“There is plenty.”

“For now. No, Sméagol will look after himself. We are in Greenwood!” His eyes gleamed and he set off at a trot.

Boromir followed. “Indeed it does not look dangerous, I suppose the most hazardous leg of our journey is ahead in Rhûn.”  

“Yes, yes, Rhûn- have you ever been there? I have not asked.”

“Nay, I have not. No one from Gondor has entered Rhûn for many long years, and I know not what awaits us- except trouble, no doubt, and the Kine of Araw, of course.”

“Kine of Araw?”

“Yes, the great oxen of Rhûn, do you not know them? You are well-read, I did not like to assume you didn’t.”

“We haven’t read that, about the oxen.”

“They were hunted by my distant ancestors. In fact, the Horn of Gondor- which I regret you have never had a chance to hear-”

“But I did! I heard it twice.”

“You did?”

“Once for Old Ghâsh, once for the Uruk-hai, yes, yes. I was watching. Not friends then. It was… loud.”

This confused Boromir for a moment, but Sméagol could only mean Amon Hen- and Moria. “Old Ghâsh- the Balrog? Did you know that monster by a nickname?”

“Only the one the Orcs used for him, we did not know him ourselfs of course!”

“Of course!”

“I overheard it and I didn’t know what it meant- until he came and you blew your horn at him. It means ‘fire’, of course, so I thought they was going on and on about fire arrows, or some other thing that is very silly but makes Orcs very proud of theirselfs for thinking of it.” Sméagol worried at his lower lip a little. “Does they speak Common?” he asked. “In Rhûn.”

“Some must, it is a trade-language and the Easterlings trade in Dale, sometimes. I have some tales from the Dwarves. But indeed, we may meet those who do not speak Common. I am able to speak to them in Sindarin if they know that tongue, of course, but I deem you…” He raised an eyebrow at Sméagol. “You perhaps may prove a better interpreter if these Men had much dealing with Orcs.”

“We can understand orc-speak well enough, but talking it is- difficult.”

“Still it may prove useful. If there is no other way to communicate they will not have the luxury of demeaning your accent as you claim the Orcs do. And you are too modest by ‘well enough’, I have never heard you fail to understand orcish speech. Though perhaps it will be different in the East.”

Sméagol nodded distantly- plainly something else had drawn his attention. He sniffed at the air.

“What is it?” Boromir asked. “You look well pleased.”

“A pond!”

“Ah! Let us go and see it.”

There was a pleasant clearing near the pond. It looked quite ordinary and wholesome- Boromir would almost have believed he was in Ithilien.

“Well!” said Boromir. “It has been a tiring night.” They had pressed themselves hard to get out of the empty Brown Lands before midnight. “It is earlier than we normally camp, but I am willing to spend the day here if you are.”

“O if he doesn’t mind,” said Sméagol, with an air of desperation and a glance at the pond.

Boromir began to set up his camp things. Sméagol streaked to the water, entering the pond with hardly a ripple.

They both had fish for dinner. Boromir cooked his on a low fire. It was the first time he had accepted Sméagol’s offer to eat what he caught by his own hand. There was no real difference in the fish from that caught by a line and hook, of course, but Boromir fancied he liked it better. Sméagol claimed he had found Boromir an especially nice specimen. It was of a type Boromir hadn’t seen before.

“I do not know what Men calls it,” said Sméagol, when asked. “It is Greenwood-fish and not anywhere in Gondor’s bookses. We did not have it- I didn’t see it at home, never saw it before I came here and there was no one to tell me what it was of course.”

“I see. What do you choose to call it?”

“Tasty,” Sméagol laughed. “We do not keep it long enough to call it anything else, do we?” He accepted a taste of the roasted fish. “It’s good enough I suppose,” he said. “Wouldn’t have liked it at all once, no, but the Men’s food doesn’t taste as nasty to us anymore. Still it is nicer when it is still cold, and so ssoft and juicy, gollum! Boromir would not like it better that way? He might, if he tried it.”

“I confess I am not adventurous enough to try it.”

“Another time perhaps,” said Sméagol, and went back to the pond where he ate his catch raw in the concealment of the reeds. He stayed away for a long stretch, and came back drowsy and thoroughly soaked. He bid Boromir good night and curled up with his back to the dying coals. Steam came off of his wet clothing.

Boromir sat up a little while, watching the dawning light filter in green through the trees and listening to Sméagol’s sleep-breathing. He knew from his friend’s own admission that Sméagol had various pains and was rarely free of them, but he had the ability to project a complete, almost hypnotizing contentment, much like a cat. Boromir would not have been astonished to hear him purr.

Boromir woke alone. It was no great mystery where Sméagol was. Boromir went about packing up his bedroll. Sméagol had not returned by the time he had finished. Boromir went closer to the pond.

Sméagol had made himself hard to see, but only in the habitual manner of hobbitkind and not purposely to conceal himself from Men’s eyes. There was a difference, Boromir had found. If he was not working to be unseen, someone used to Sméagol’s habits may learn to spot his shape in the water where one not so familiar would see a rock or clump of weeds- he could be spotted even here in the Greenwood, where the vegetation was rich and concealment ready to hand.

There he was now, leisurely poking around in the shallows. Boromir approached and sat down a little distance away, where it was drier.

“Good morning,” Sméagol hummed. “Sméagol’s just finishing his breakfast. Do you eat snailses?”

“On occasion, but only if they are cooked, I fear, and seasoned in a way you would most dislike. And cleaned thoroughly, as well.”

“I clean them, I clean them,” he said. “Like this!” He dunked something in his hand lightly in the water, and then brought it to his mouth with an unpleasant slurping sound.

Boromir wondered what wonders it would do for supply lines if the Men of the Gondor were able to happily forage for snails by night and eat them from the shell. He looked away, letting his gaze absently drift over the placid water until it landed on a large shape. A boulder perhaps-

It moved.

“Sméagol,” he said under his breath, “be calm, but look…”

“O yes, we doesn’t mind him, good Sméagol. I stay away, I just stay away and be quiet, nicely.”

“You have seen it?”

“Of course, I see farther than you in the dark, a bit. A good bit.” He glanced at Boromir’s hand on the hilt of his sword. “Ha, ha! It’s big, eh? It’s only a horse. Boromir rides horses.”

“A horse?”

Sméagol’s eyes were wide and guileless like those of a confused child. “Yes. Is it too dark for you to see it perhaps? Only a horse.”

The general shape rising out of the mist could have been called horselike. But it was too sinuous and sleek, and its neck too long, and its legs bending in impossible manner, and its eyes…

“That is a creature you know as a horse?” Only Sméagol’s utter lack of concern held Boromir where he sat.

“Yes, yes- what else is it? Do Men call it different?”

“It is a most unusual horse to my eyes. I cannot say I know another right name for it.”

The horse-creature turned its head. Its eyes were fell glints of light.

Sméagol watched it carefully, the way he watched things he knew may escape him if they felt his scrutiny. “It is a horse that likes the River,” he said uncertainly. “Not all horses likes swimming, so it is different from those horses, yes.”

The creature dipped its head to the ground.

“What does it eat?” Boromir asked.

“Grass. It is a horse.”

“And you have seen horses of its like before?”

“Lotses of them, lotses and lotses. It is… a wild horse. A water-horse. Yes, because when Sméagol thinks, he hasn’t seen them since going to live with Men. So that sort does not like Men perhaps. Land-horses like Men.”

He showed no fear of the apparition, indeed, he seemed to prefer it to the ordinary kind of horse. Sméagol’s instincts for danger were on the whole better than Boromir’s, but he did have the occasional blind spot- he had lost his fear of Orcs and Trolls almost entirely, claiming they were mostly harmless with their master dead.

Boromir sat quietly and watched, ready to take up his sword at a moment’s notice, while Sméagol feasted at leisure on snails and some other things he pulled out of the water that Boromir did not examine closely. At length, the thing that was supposedly a horse slunk off to parts unknown, moving in the other direction from where they had camped. It made no sound.

Sméagol began a businesslike splashing in the water that meant he was washing off the blood and slime from his meal. “All full up now. Sméagol can leave now. Did Boromir want to wash or swim before we go? Or is he ready?”

Boromir pulled himself to his feet, making the unwelcome discovery that his leg had stiffened. “Let us be off!” And Valar be praised, they would be putting distance between them and that horse.