The Worlds of Christopher Walker

“STOP RUSHING ME!” growled Aragunk from his slobbery pillow. “I’m awake already!”

His elf friend Lumpolas, perched outside on what could barely be called a crack in the high wall of fair Minas Tirith, glared at him through his bedchamber window. “I’m rushing you because you’ve fallen asleep again twice since I’ve been here! Now get up or we’ll miss the boat!”

“Leave me alone,” Aragunk yawned, pulling his blanket over his head. “I’ve got my boots on, don’t I?”

Lumpolas grumbled and swung his girth from one side of the window-frame to the other without looking down at the sheer drop to the rocky plain beneath him. “Your boots? You were supposed to meet me at the pig gate half an hour ago, you great lazy swine! Do you hear me?” But only Aragunk’s loud snoring answered him from within the messy bedchamber.

The young elf sighed and glanced over his shoulder at the horizon and sniffed the early autumn air. The sea beckoned, and the dawn had already started its first sluggish yawn of the morning. Their plan had been simple, making it twice as complicated as it needed to be for Aragunk: rise early on the first morning of September, sneak off to the wharf, and smuggle aboard Gandalf’s galley bound downriver. But Lumpolas had watched the white wizard gallop out the gates with a grim troop of riders while Aragunk had been nowhere to be seen. Reaching the river on time called for drastic action now.

He muttered an elvish curse against Aragunk’s laziness and reached to climb into the room, this time to drag his friend out of bed if he had to. But then, the toe of his boot slipped from the tiny crack in the wall. His stomach filled with ice and his heart exploded to life as his keen elven eyes shot groundward and beheld every sharp boulder and spiky outcropping threatening to devour him from below. Lumpolas just snatched the windowsill with his fingertips before he fell and clung on. “Help!” he cried. “Aragunk! Help! I’m slipping!” He flung a knee up onto the window ledge, praying to every star he could think of to save him while Aragunk snored away in his bed.

This, of course, would all have been easy for most elves. But Lumpolas’s big round belly made him stick out from most elves as much as it made him stick out from the wall now. That’s because few elves were as fond of food, or of cooking, gathering, or dreaming about food as Lumpolas, the youngest brother of the far-famed Legolas. But now, with his fingertips sliding from the windowsill, this quest threatened to sink before it ever set sail.

 “Don’t look down! Don’t look down!” he whimpered, scraping and scratching against the wall with his boots as the abyss below opened its jaws to devour him. “No! No! No!” he cried out, gripping only with his fingernails now. But terror added wings to his efforts. His toe found purchase in another crack and, with one desperate heave, he lurched up and over the window ledge, landing with a colossal belly-flop (by elven standards) on the squalid floor of Aragunk’s bedchamber. 

“This is what I left my kitchens for?” Lumpolas murmured. “To risk my life to wake the laziest human alive?” And he had strong reason to complain. In the two years since the War of the Ring had ended, his fame as a chef had flown across Middle-earth. These days, his father’s table never lacked for eager guests, nobles and dignitaries from around the realm, desiring to savor the exalted fare of Thranduil’s table. And yet, though nothing could make him happier than filling grateful bellies with his culinary creations, Lumpolas still made time to sneak off from his beloved kitchens in Mirkwood to go adventuring with his best friend Aragunk, the younger and much less famous brother of Aragorn, the new king.

He staggered to his feet, clutching his thumping heart and cursing at Aragunk in elvish. But if you had been in the bedchamber with him, you wouldn’t have heard a word of it because his friend’s legendary snores drowned them out like an ocean wave swallowing a handful of sand. Many said that Aragunk’s snoring could wake the dead. But a royal decree had long-since banished him to the most remote chamber in the keep so that both the living and the dead could rest in peace.

Lumpolas stuck his fingers in his sensitive elven ears and hurried over to Aragunk’s bed. “You great slumbering slug, wake up! It’s time to go!” But the young ranger just snored and slumbered on. Lumpolas seized his friend by the shoulders and shook him like a rag doll. “Aragunk, get up!”

But in his dreams, Aragunk only felt the thunderous galloping of a huge white charger beneath him, carrying him beside his brother Aragorn. He wielded a tremendous axe in one hand, his trusted sword in the other, as they coursed into battle together against a horde of dark enemies. A sigh of contentment escaped him as a choir of maidens sang his courageous deeds from the heavens. All was well. He laughed in surprise when he found himself shooting a bow and arrow with a new set of hands. Then still another hand proffered him a roast turkey leg. Aragunk’s head swam with confusion. How did he get so many hands? He shrugged and took a hearty bite as he galloped onward. Then, yet another hand offered him a golden goblet to wash down the turkey. He drank deeply. But when he tried to push the cup away, the vessel refused to budge. Wine and more wine came pouring and gushing from the goblet into his mouth until he began drowning in it. Aragunk swatted at the cup. He tried leaping from his horse, struggling in vain to escape the torrent of wine, until at last he came crashing back to the shores of the waking world.

Sputtering and retching, Aragunk’s eyes shot open. There stood Lumpolas over him, pouring a slapping stream of water on his face from the never-ending cup they had found in Mordor during the Great War. “Stop!” Aragunk choked and thrashed as the water pounded down from the enchanted cup. “For the love of Galadriel’s green toes, stop! I’m awake!” Aragunk flailed, trying to catch hold of the chuckling elf. But everyone knows that catching creatures that rarely trip, stumble or slip, or do anything clumsy is all but impossible.

But Aragunk had enough of the clumsies in him for a platoon of elves. He rolled and kicked one of his big boots out, accidentally blasting an oaken leg of his huge four-post bed completely off its frame. The heavy wooden canopy buckled above Lumpolas’s head. Then Aragunk, hopelessly tangled up in his sheets now, rolled blindly off the bed onto the floor, ripping the sheets from beneath Lumpolas’s feet on his way. He took out another canopy post as he fell, collapsing the entire bed on the falling elf with a crash.

A moment later, Lumpolas came crawling, dazed and disheveled, out from underneath the fallen four-poster. “So much for sneaking away quietly, you clumsy oaf!” He found his friend was now a giant roll of bedsheets roaring and flopping on the filthy floor. “Serves you right, Aragunk! I almost died getting in here while you slept and I’ve half a mind to go off without you!” Aragunk’s muffled howls grew louder. “Peace! Calm yourself or I swear I’ll leave you! Do you hear me?” The roll of twisted sheets stopped its flopping and fell silent. “That’s better,” said Lumpolas. “I should keep you tied up like a bag of laundry and haul you off to keep you out of trouble! Now I’m going to cut you free. But you have to promise, as a ranger and a warrior of Gondor, you will not attack me or do anything you would regret later. Deal?” 

After a long pause, a muffled, “Mmm hmmm,” whimpered from the tangled sheets.  

Lumpolas took out his kitchen knife. “Remember Aragunk, I have your word.” The sheets fell away with one deft slash, honed by years of slicing vegetables and game in his father’s kitchens. At once, Aragunk sat upright in his princely pajamas, grinning like a murderous maniac. “Good day, my dear friend, gentle Lumpolas of the fair wooded realm,” he said in a sickly sweet voice. “How delightful to see you this wonderful morning!”

Lumpolas crept a step backward. “Now remember, Gunk, I have your word. You’re to behave yourself and get ready so we can go.”

Aragunk leaped up to his full impressive height. “But am I not calm, friend Lump? Am I not behaving myself? Even though your bad manners destroyed my bed, made a mess of my room, and nearly drowned me?” He took a menacing step toward the elf.

Lumpolas retreated closer to the window. Elves rarely let themselves sweat, but right now an icy ribbon of it tickled Lumpolas’s spine. “What are you going to do?”

Aragunk’s face took on a darker shade as he drew nearer still.

The window behind Lumpolas stood open to the sheer drop while his friend glowered over him. He gripped his elven kitchen knife even harder.

Then Aragunk snorted and burst into a roaring laugh that might have woken the whole keep if his chamber hadn’t been so far out of earshot. “You should see your face, Lump! You truly thought I was going to kill you!”

Lumpolas blinked in bewilderment as his friend collapsed into a chair in a fit of laughter. “Oh, ha ha,” he said, putting his knife away. “Look everyone, the young oaf of Gondor made someone laugh. Too bad it was only himself! Here’s a bit of advice: try making a joke that somebody else will laugh at someday. Now get yourself ready!”

“Ready?” Aragunk asked through the tears in his eyes. “Ready for what?”

“Ready for what? The quest, imbecile! The quest you begged and pleaded for me to come on with you. We’re going to be late!”

Aragunk’s guffaws vanished. “The quest?” He flew out of the chair. “The quest! My quest!”

“Yes, our quest. And if you don’t hurry, our quest is going to set sail down the Anduin without us. We’ll be lucky to make it as it is now.”

Horror shot across Aragunk’s face. “I’m going to miss my quest!” He stormed around the bedchamber. “Why didn’t you wake me earlier? Where’s my sword? My clothes? Where’s all my bloody questing gear? Do we have horses?”

After several minutes of panicked scrambling and packing, Aragunk finally arrived panting by the window, mostly ready to go 

“About bloody time,” said Lumpolas as he leaped up onto the windowsill. “Now, follow me.” Then he stepped out the window-frame and fell out of sight.

“Lump!” Aragunk lunged to the sill. His gaze shot over the edge, expecting to find his friend smashed on the rocks. But there he found Lumpolas smiling up at him from below the ledge, levitating in mid-air.

“Ha! I wish you could see your face now, Gunk! You truly thought I was dead, didn’t you?”

“What? No, I’m just in haste, that’s all,” sputtered Aragunk, shrugging off his embarrassment. “But what sorcery is this keeping you aloft?”

Lumpolas grinned. “Elvish thread! I snuck it from my mother’s dressmaker. Look! The race of man has never woven a stronger cord. And see, it’s nearly invisible. Now come!”

“I’m not trusting my life to any flimsy elvish trickery. I’ll go get a real rope,” said Aragunk, turning away.

“You can’t! You’ll have to trust my elvish trickery or we’ll miss the ship.”

“Forget it! I’ll be back.”

Lumpolas smiled a mischievous smile. The time to speak the magic word had come—the one word that could always snare his friend. “Oh, well, if you’re going to be a coward about it, that’s another matter altogether, isn’t it?”

Aragunk spun around in mid-step and one didn’t need elven eyes to see the rage gathering in his bunched shoulders. “What… did… you… call me?”

Lumpolas smirked and waved. His own fear of falling had flown away with the chance to torment Aragunk’s well-known fear of heights. “Well, so long, my cowardly friend! You can tuck yourself back into bed where it’s safe, can’t you? Or should I summon your nurse?”

Aragunk’s face darkened into purple. “Take it back, Lump!”

The elf laughed. “Come make me.” Aragunk hesitated, torn between wrath and terror. Lumpolas pulled back and made to descend without him. “That’s what I thought. Well, off I go, dearest Gunk. I’ll let you know how the quest turned out.”

Aragunk’s heart pounded within him. “Wait!” The promise of adventure and fell deeds immortalized in song nudged him out onto the windowsill with many curses uttered under his breath. “Give me this magical woman’s-thread and let us be off,” he grumbled, his legs hanging over the sheer drop and his eyes shut.

“No need, my brave friend. I snared a loop around your ankle while you were packing.”

Aragunk cracked an eyelid and lifted both his feet. “You lie! No one could snare a ranger without him knowing—” But before he could speak another word, Lumpolas kicked back from the wall and gave a hard yank to the gossamer thread looped around the young ranger’s left ankle. Aragunk went hurtling off the sill with a shriek and swung upside down by his foot over the yawning precipice.

Lumpolas laughed and let the elven thread spin off its tiny spool. “You see? I coiled the thread around the column in your room so we wouldn’t fall.” But Aragunk didn’t see and didn’t answer. Instead, he kept his hands slapped fast over his eyes while struggling to loose the scream of terror frozen in his throat.

From afar, they would have appeared to be floating down the city wall like autumn leaves falling from a tree until Lumpolas’s toes touched the ground next to their waiting horse. Only then did Aragunk, who still had not dared to peek, let his stifled panic find its full throat. The blood-curdling scream of a man about to meet his doom howled across the plain of Minas Tirith, threatening to wake everything for leagues.

“Shhhh!” Lumpolas tore open his rucksack, seized a potato, and stuffed it into his friend’s mouth. Aragunk snapped his eyes wide and found himself very alive, dangling only a foot from the earth. “Finished?” asked Lumpolas. He twisted the elvish thread in his fingers, which obediently dropped the flailing ranger to the ground and coiled itself back onto its spool.

Aragunk sat up and yanked the potato out of his mouth. “Thanks, I needed that.”

“Hurry, the horse is ready!”

Aragunk bit off the end of the potato, peel and all. “Not bad. What else do you have in your bag? I’m starving!”

By this time, an old sentry and the lieutenant of the dawn watch were peering down from the city walls. “What in the name of Illúvatar was that?” They both watched the young ranger and the elf as they galloped away across the plain.

“Oh, it’s just the king’s idiot brother and his fat elf friend again, sir. Off on another imaginary quest, I suppose.”

The lieutenant stifled a yawn. “I thought someone were tickling a pig to death with a meat cleaver for all that racket.”

“Aye, sir, stealth and cunning ain’t the young Lord’s strong suit, ain’t they?”

“Eating and snoring are his strong suit, I wot. But he does have a stout heart, doesn’t he?”

“Aye, sir, brave as a wild boar,” said the sentry. 

“And about as smart.”

The old sentry cackled. “Aye, but only half as pretty,” 

“Well, as you were, soldier. They’re bound to be back before lunchtime,” said the lieutenant with a smirk, “banging on the gate, a’begging for their supper.”

“Aye, sir,” said the old sentry. “Supper it is then.”

A frantic twenty-minute gallop faced Lumpolas and Aragunk eastwards to Osgiliath, the river port of Gondor. Aragunk gripped the reins while Lumpolas squatted atop the horse’s haunches. The elf glanced back over his shoulders to check if anyone had followed them.

Aragunk tingled with glee to be on a mission. He imagined himself galloping into a heroic struggle against impossible odds like his “uncle,” Faramir the Wise, had done two and a half years ago on this same plain. “Oh yes,” he sang to himself with a huge grin as they rode. “Today we ride to glorious victory and fell deeds worthy of being sung by the maidens of Gondor for generations. Today we ride for—”

“Stop!” said Lumpolas, pointing ahead to the sentry tower ahead. “We’re going to be seen!” Aragunk saw the tower, did not stop, but veered north instead. “What are you doing?”

“We can’t stop, Lump. We’re already late. Don’t worry, I have a plan! I’ll get us to the dock. You get us aboard the galley. Agreed?”

Lumpolas knew that Aragunk’s plans never went according to design, nor ever could. He also knew that he had no inkling how to get them onto Gandalf’s ship unseen. Himself, yes, but with his big gawky friend in tow?

“Fine,” he sighed, grimacing at what a terrible idea this whole quest was turning out to be. Gandalf was sure to catch them. But at least they’d be back at Minas Tirith before lunch, maybe even by mid-morning snack. That happy thought set Lumpolas off on his own daydreams. But his fantasies, as always, involved food—breakfast foods in this case: steaming sizzling sausages, hot biscuits dripping with fresh-churned butter, and ripe plump entberries glistening in the sun. All these and more danced through his mind, sending his mouth watering.

“No harm in a little snack,” he reasoned as they charged in a wide, sweeping arc to the north side of Osgiliath. Lumpolas reached for his rucksack and stuck his keen elven nose into the top. He inhaled the aroma of the many goodies he had laid in to get them through another dreadful quest. He opened the sack and found a delicate pastry at the top, wrapped in translucent silk to keep its buttery flakes from covering everything. “Mmm, just a nibble for now. We can have the rest when we’re back at the castle.” He unwrapped it and brought the golden pastry to his lips and bit off the end. A song of joy swelled in his heart. “Hungry work this questing. Better have another tiny morsel.” Another bite followed that one and another and another until soon his chin lay covered with flaky crumbs. His hand plunged into the sack on a quest for a jar of jam.

Meanwhile, away to the South, atop the lonely watch tower, a sleepy guard watched their horse go galloping past. “Hey, take a gander at this,” he said, giving a kick to his slumbering watchmate. “There goes the king’s brother and there’s someone—I think it’s his elf friend—squatting on the horse’s rump. It looks like he’s got his head stuck in a feed bag.”

His companion woke up but didn’t open his eyes. “That’s nice.”

“Should we tell the captain? Sound the bell?” 

The dozing sentry cracked his eyelids with a sneer. “Sound the bell? And tell the captain what? That Osgiliath is under attack by a ravenous ride-by eater? Lock up your storehouses! A hungry elf is coming!” The sentry folded his arms and shut his eyes again. “Wake me if anything interesting happens.”

“Now don’t get cross with me. I just thought it were funny, I did.” But his companion had fallen to snoring already, so the sentry leaned back with a shrug and joined him.

By the time Aragunk and Lumpolas arrived at the wharves of Osgiliath, their “questing provisions” had been greatly lightened. The elf’s face lay heavy in a patina of jam and pastry crumbs and butter. “We’ve escaped undetected, Lump!” Aragunk announced in triumph. “My plan is working, just like I told you!”

Lumpolas woke from his food trance. “Wonderful! Congratulations!” he tried to say, but it came out garbled by a mouthful of pastry.

“Now we must use stealth and cunning,” said Aragunk. He reined in the horse at the wharf and dropped to the ground. “Come!”

“Right, yes, stealth,” Lumpolas said, licking the jam off his fingers. “Stealth and cunning.” He tied up the neck of the rucksack, lamenting how light it felt already.

Aragunk, meanwhile, peered over a bundle of baled wool towards the boats moored beyond. “There they are,” he said as Lumpolas arrived next to him. “And look, there’s a beautiful queen waiting to board the ship! Our ship. We’ll be protecting her!”

Lumpolas marked where Aragunk pointed but saw no queen. “Queen?” He squinted around the dock with his elven eyes. Then he started laughing. “Oh, did you mean the beautiful queen in the flowing white dress standing by the gangplank?”

“Yes! Is she not majestic?” Aragunk’s face danced in transports of ecstasy. He imagined himself defending the fair lady from a host of barbarians with the strength of his mighty arm. “Is she not a handsome woman in truth? Is she not noble and worthy of our protection, brother? Fate is calling us. And yet you laugh, villain! And I’ll have your elven hide made into a saddlebag for it!”

Lumpolas couldn’t stop laughing. “You have the eyesight of a sack of worms, you dunderhead. That’s not a beautiful queen, that’s Gandalf the White!”

“You lie!”

“Well, if I’m wrong, then your queen has the longest beard this dock has ever seen!” His cheeks streamed with tears.

Aragunk ground his teeth in embarrassment as his friend doubled over with the snickers. “I had dust in my eyes from the road!” he hissed. “You would too if your face wasn’t buried in a food-sack! I’ve done my job! I got us here. Now it’s your turn. Get us on that boat!”

Lumpolas’s laughter broke off. “Er, no problem. I’ve got it all figured out. Just one thing.”

“What?” asked Aragunk, pointedly not looking at Gandalf at all.

“Why are we doing this again?”

“Why? Because it’s a quest—a very important quest.”

“A very important quest? A quest for what? What makes it so important?”

Aragunk dismissed his question with a wave. “If Gandalf is doing it, then it must be important. Gandalf only does important things. So, if he’s going on a quest, it must be an important quest. That’s why we’re going.”

Lumpolas stared at him. “You have no idea what this quest is about, do you?”

“That’s not true. I overheard them speaking of it after a session of the council.” Aragunk puffed his chest out.

“You were at a session of the council? When did they let you on the council?”

Aragunk’s chest fell. “Well, I wasn’t at the session. I was busy… training.”

Lumpolas squinted at him. “You were training while the council sat and then they reported what they said to you?”

Aragunk glanced down at his shuffling feet as he spoke. “Well, it was more of a rumor.”

“A rumor? We’re going on a quest, risking our lives, skipping breakfast and maybe lunch too based on a rumor you heard? Who told you this rumor?”

“A kitchen maid.”

“A kitchen maid? You heard a rumor from a kitchen maid and now we’re going on a mad quest in a boat?”

“Yes! Now you’re seeing it!”

Lumpolas shook his head in disbelief. “Well, what was the rumor? It must have been something wonderful.”

Aragunk’s eyes flashed. “Aye, my friend, ’twas. She mentioned something about a whisper from the deep darkness. And that something from ancient times has been recovered. Gandalf has to go uncover the truth of it!”

“Something has been recovered? But what is it?”

“She didn’t know. They—Gandalf and my brother—spoke in a language she couldn’t understand.”

Lumpolas snorted as he stared at the hopeful, puppy-like face of his friend. “That’s it? Find some object somebody misplaced a long time ago? And a bit about a voice in the dark? Does that about sum it up?”

Aragunk nodded. “Aye, that’s it! But don’t make that face, my friend. Haven’t you had enough of chopping vegetables in your kitchen? This is a chance to do noteworthy deeds! We’ll be on a quest with the white wizard! Something dangerous is bound to happen! Now look, we’ve come this far. Let’s get on that boat and see where we land. Please, my dearest friend!”

“Do you know what Gandalf will do to us when he finds us stowed away on a secret mission? He’ll turn us into apples, or newts, or what might be worse!”

“Please,” said Aragunk, his brows quivering. Lumpolas closed his eyes and grudgingly nodded his head. The excitement beamed from Aragunk’s face and he slapped his friend hard on the back. “That’s the spirit! Now, what’s your plan to get us on the galley?”

Lumpolas gulped and scanned around the dock for an idea. “It’s very simple. We just go and get a… Well, you see, we’ll get aboard by… um…”

“You do have a plan, don’t you?” asked Aragunk.

“Yes! Well, I might have the rumor of a plan.”

“The rumor of a plan? What does that mean?”

“It means as much as your rumor of a quest, you great oaf!”

Aragunk’s face turned dark. “You don’t have a plan to get us aboard at all, do you? Look, Lump, they’re about to launch! We have to get aboard now or we’ll miss it!”

“I’m working on it!” Lumpolas growled back. As his desperation stung him, his keen nose picked out the savory scent of salted meats nearby. “There!” He pointed toward the barrels being loaded onto the galley. “That’s our way aboard—in those barrels. We’ll empty a couple of them out and then we’ll get in. The sailors will do all the work for us.”

Aragunk’s countenance fell. “That’s the best plan you could come up with?”

“It’s the only plan I could come up with. And it will have to do. Now wait here! When I give the signal, try to follow as quietly as you can.”

Lumpolas, despite his girth, could still be silent and sneaky when he needed to be. Aragunk, though, was hopelessly heavy of foot. He could only be counted on to run into things, or trip over things, or accidentally break things to pieces wherever he went. Getting him snuck onto the boat was going to take much more ingenuity than getting him out of bed had. “You understand, Gunk? Wait here for the signal!”

“I heard you the first time!” Aragunk snapped as he watched Lumpolas pad towards a group of barrels near the galley. His dim eyesight made it tough to be sure, but Aragunk thought he saw the elf tip over a barrel. Splashing sounds tinkled back over the dock as Lumpolas emptied it into the river.

Then, a soft “Pssst!” flew to him from Lumpolas. Aragunk ducked behind the bale of wool, thinking his friend was telling him to hide. “Pssst!” Lumpolas called again, regretting leaving him behind as much as he knew he would have regretted bringing him along. Aragunk poked his head above the bale and waved back. Lumpolas could only shake his head and gape at the colossal thickheadedness of his best friend. Now he had to sneak all the way back and lead him like an old nag. His face smoldered when he returned. “Why didn’t you come when I called you? Now we have even less time!”

“I waited for you to give the signal. You didn’t, so I stayed put.”

“I did give the signal! What do you think PSSST means, you dundering imbecile?”

“That’s not our signal! Our signal is HOOT HOOT, like a barn owl. That’s always been our signal, Lump. And don’t insult me again or I will be forced to chastise you. A common cook will not speak to the brother of the king with such insolence!”

“A cook? A common cook?” Lumpolas’s teeth set to grinding in his head. “I’ll have you know I am a food-artist of the noble lineage of the Sindar and a son of Thranduil, king of the Wooded Realms. I will not allow a common foot soldier and stable boy of Gondor to speak to me in such a manner! Now, I have your barrel ready, your majesty. If you still want to go on this quest, you’d better follow me. And you had better do it quietly. Though we both know that’s impossible!”

Aragunk grit his teeth, torn between punching his friend for the insult and getting on the questing-boat. “I’ll come. But know this, brazen churl: I will exact satisfaction for your outrageous insults when we get aboard!”

“That’s a deal,” said Lumpolas. “Now let’s go! And do at least try to be quiet.”

They picked their way toward the barrel, the air between them frosty and tense. Twice they had to hide when sailors and dock workers lumbered by, hauling another load of provisions onto the ship. At last, they made it to the empty barrel. “In you go,” said Lumpolas, holding the lid. “Get in. I’ll fasten the lid back on and empty another. Then they’ll come load us aboard.”

The smell from the barrel smacked Aragunk’s nose. “Ugh! What is that reek? Fish?”

“Pickled herring. Broke my heart to dump it, but at least it’s going back to the sea where it came from.”

“You want me to get into a rotten fish barrel? I’ll do no such thing!”

“You will, unless you have a better idea for getting aboard that boat. Now get in!”

The smell alone would have been enough to turn Aragunk’s stomach sour. But the thought of being shut into the dark barrel alone twisted his guts into a trembling knot. “No, by Beren’s beard! Not for all the treasure in Erebor will I crawl into this stinking cess-bucket! I’ll not—”

Lumpolas pointed a finger over Aragunk’s shoulder, pretending to see someone. “Somebody’s coming! Quick! Get in!”

The young ranger winced, swung his legs into the barrel, and crouched down with a low whine. “You had better get me out as soon as we’re aboard or I’ll have your pointed ears, food-artist!”

“Shh! Bend down!” Lumpolas tried not to laugh at how easily his friend could be fooled. But then he froze when he really did hear heavy steps coming their way.

“Alright, you!” said the gruff voice of the boat’s quartermaster. “Those barrels are the last going in the hold.”

“Aye, sir,” grumbled a dockhand as he plodded toward them with a dolly in tow.

“You’ve been more trouble than a diseased pile of termites. And just as slow!” the quartermaster said. “Get these loaded on double-quick or I’ll have you hung up by the yardarm!”

Lumpolas, crouching behind the barrel, panicked. They were out of time and about to be caught. No time to empty a barrel for himself. So, he stuffed his rucksack on top of Aragunk and jumped in on top of him. He brought the barrel lid with him and dropped it in place above them.

“What are you doing?” Aragunk would have yelled, but Lumpolas’s rucksack smothered his face.

“Shh! Someone is coming,” said Lumpolas. He prayed for the dockhand to bypass their barrel and give him a chance to get another emptied for himself.

“Talk to me that way,” the dockhand grumbled as he approached. “I’d like to show him the sights from the yardarm. Haul this! Do it faster! Tote that! Put it over there! And always faster, faster, faster! Like I ain’t never loaded a boat before.” Lumpolas’s heart sank when their barrel tipped as the dockhand tilted it to slide the dolly under. “Been doin’ this since I was wee and he thinks he can tell me ‘ow to do my job? I’ve ‘alf a mind to loosen the cork on their wine barrels and let ‘em seep out all over the hold! What’s this? Bloody shippers can’t even get a lid on snug!” He dropped the barrel with a thud and pounded the top down tight with a slap of his hand. He followed that with the banging of his hammer to secure it. 

Lumpolas and Aragunk, now stuck fast inside the stinking barrel together, began whimpering in the darkness. The dockhand hauled them off to the hold of the galley. If they could have moved, they would have both flailed in their panic. If they could have yelled, they would have howled with all their might. But they scarcely had room to breathe as they lay scrunched up together, miserable and scared for an endless age, until with a jarring jolt and a rough scraping slide, their barrel landed in the ship’s hold.

This, without question, was the lowest moment of their young lives to this point. And like all terrible moments, it stretched on forever. Poor Aragunk had it the worst, squished under his rotund friend’s backside at the bottom of the dank reeking barrel, unable to move or scream because of the rucksack full of food stuffed in his face. Lumpolas wasn’t any happier, but he dared not try to escape until the ship was underway down the river. Every time Lumpolas thought he could risk prying the barrel lid up, his elven ears would detect the constant stream of grumbling from the dockhand as he hauled in another of the barrels. The little air in the barrel had already grown stifling and they were getting lightheaded. Aragunk moaned in misery beneath him.

“Hold on,” said Lumpolas. “I’m going to get us a little air.” He pushed on the lid to let a precious breath in, but the dockhand had nailed it down too well. He couldn’t force it open because of the awkward way he had stuffed himself into the barrel. “A terrible plan,” said Lumpolas, “an awful plan. The worst, most awful plan any elf has ever had!”

“Mmm hmm!” Aragunk’s muffled agreement rose from the bottom. Lumpolas, with terror swelling, struggled to find an escape. He imagined the quartermaster opening the barrel well out to sea and finding them dead at the bottom. He pounded on the side with all his fading strength to signal to someone. But his knocking sounded weak, muted and pathetic. No one had a chance of hearing it over the bustling sounds of a ship preparing to get underway.

That was when Aragunk started truly to panic and thrash about underneath him, trying to smash his way out by any means possible. His knees smacked into Lumpolas’s back, knocking the wind out of him as he flailed with all his might. From there, matters only got worse. Lumpolas caught the panic too and started thrashing around inside the barrel. The air grew hotter and heavier, their brains dizzier, their hearts pounded faster and faster. They both knew the end had come.

Then a wrenching sound twisted through the barrel. The lid squeaked loose. Light and sweet blessed air came streaming down on them as if sent from Heaven. They began tipping. Lumpolas caught sight of a pair of slender hands gripping the edge and toppling them over with a crash. They came crawling out, bedraggled, half-conscious, nauseated, and thankful beyond measure to be out and alive when death had been so close. They lay gasping and retching on the deck of the gloomy hold.

“Well, aren’t you the two biggest pickled fish I’ve ever seen?” said a maiden’s voice. A girl in dark clothing crouched above them on a crate with a drawn bow. She had two arrows nocked and pointed at each of them. “You have five seconds to tell me who you are and why I shouldn’t skewer both of you right here and now!”