The Last of the Guardians Part 2 - A Hobbit Fan Fiction

Chapter 6 - The Poisoned Forest

The next day, the company rose with the sun and made preparations to enter Mirkwood. There was a noticeable tension in the air, made worse by the return of the male Guardian just before dawn. He now sat beside the cold, dead fire, sharpening his sword. The sound of the whetstone scraping against the metal grated on the ears of the dwarves, as if every stroke brought the doom of Middle Earth closer and closer. As if sensing their disquiet and their nervous glances, the Guardian would raise his eyes to meet each and every gaze that came his way.

But the Guardian was not the only thing setting the dwarves on edge. As Bilbo stared into the shadows lurking under the cover of the trees, his stomach turned over. There was something...unnatural in the air within the Forest of Mirkwood. Something...dangerous. The hobbit was beginning to think there was nothing in the whole of Middle Earth that would make him enter the forest when, to make matters worse, Gandalf announced he would not be journeying with them further. He had been standing just within the shelter of the forest, staring at a tree draped with ivy as though obsessed by it.
 

"You're not coming with us?" Bilbo said, his voice almost a squeak. With the wizard gone, there was very little chance of him making it home alive.
 

"I am afraid not," Gandalf replied, causing a grumble to rise from the dwarves. "I have important business elsewhere."
 

"What could be more important that the reclaiming of a homeland?" Demanded Thorin.

"A good many things. If I could continue to aid you in your quest I would but alas it is not too be." He turned away from the tree at last and strode to the horse he had borrowed from Beorn. Protests from the dwarves followed him up into the saddle. "You will make it the Erebor without me, I am sure of it!" He told them all.

Wondering what Gandalf had been staring at, Nema approached the tree and brushed back the ivy. What she saw made her heart sink. Painted in blood on the bark of the tree was a strange symbol resembling an eye of fire. Nema reached out to touch the mark, but drew her hand away when her fingers came within a hair's breadth of the bark. She could feel an intense, evil heat emanating from the eye. "Gandalf..." she whispered, then, in a louder voice, she said, "wait!" and almost ran to his side.

The wizard looked down at her, wary of what she was going to say. "I'm must go. I have played my part."

"No, I know," Nema replied, "just..." She stretched out one wing and gently plucked from it a pure white feather. Holding it up for him to take she said, "Stay safe. Never let your guard down."

Gandalf took the feather and held it tentatively in his hands. Warmth spread from the soft fibres and into his fingertips. "Thank you," he said softly. "If I can, I shall return," and he galloped away from the forest. The dwarves released the ponies to return to Beorn and turned to face Mirkwood. 

"In we go," said Bofur, and they set off along the trail.

The deeper into the forest the company travelled, the darker and more eerie it became. The trees were covered in strange fungi not even Nori or Ori had ever come across, and the tiny streams that ran through the woods were a murky brown with poisonous-looking lumps of green mould floating in the water. Even the air had been fouled by the unnamed sickness that had claimed the forest of Mirkwood for it's own. The air was thick, heavy and slowed the mind until it the dwarves found it difficult to tell plant from animal. They lunged with their swords at huge ferns, ready to tackle the beasts of the forest, and at one point Gloin and Oin had to pull Dwalin off sapling he later swore was a snake.

For their own safety, they had been warned to stick to the path by Gandalf, but that proved to be a good deal harder than any of them had expected. Upon starting into the forest, the path had been well-marked, and had been passed over by many a foot that made it easy to see. But the deeper they went, the more shy the path seemed to become. Soon it was avoiding them all together, dividing in two and leading them in circles. More than once did they have to retrace their steps to find a dwarf who had fallen behind and lost their way. Just after noon, they lost the path entirely.