Perched upon the stunted tree, Keith watched the drama unfold with the detached amusement of a spectator.
"Mithrandir," he added, his eagle-voice rasping, "one thing more I had no chance to say. On my flight hither, I spotted Orc-packs. They hunt the trails like wolves, and I believe they are tracking your scent. You would do well to keep your eyes to the horizon."
Gandalf and the Company had heard the distant howls nights ago, so the presence of Orcs was no shock. But the notion of being hunted was different.
"Tracking us?" Gandalf asked, his brow furrowing.
"It is a possibility," Keith replied ambiguously. "Fortune favor your path."
With a powerful snap of his wings, the eagle took flight, banking away toward the west.
"My thanks," Gandalf called out. He watched the bird until it was a mere speck against the clouds, his eyes filled with a complicated suspicion.
Something was deeply wrong. Was this truly a servant of Galadriel? If not, whose eyes were watching them? And to what end? He resolved to find the truth the moment they reached sanctuary.
"Gandalf... Orcs are hunting us?" Bilbo asked, his voice cracking with a very sincere terror.
Gandalf shook off his dark thoughts and offered the Hobbit a reassuring, if weary, smile. "Only a possibility, my dear Bilbo. Not a certainty. Come, we must catch up to Thorin."
The Wizard didn't waste time. If the Orcs were indeed close, Thorin's stubborn pride might lead the Dwarves straight into an ambush.
Meanwhile, Keith continued his flight.
The Company was still two days from the borders of Rivendell. To a dragon-soul in an eagle's skin, two days was an eternity. It was enough time for a personal pilgrimage.
By the following morning, Keith reached The Shire.
If Rivendell was a dream of ethereal beauty, Bag End was a dream of the earth. It was a land of rolling green hills, blooming gardens, and a pervasive sense of home. It was a world of comfort and "smoke-and-fire" domesticity.
Keith loved it. The human side of him—the soul of a man who had been tired of the modern rat race—found the Shire's "relaxation" intoxicating.
He shifted his form again, shrinking into a common Raven. He spent several hours drifting through the Shire, watching the Hobbits go about their business—tending gardens, gossiping over fences, and enjoying the slow rhythm of the day. At one point, he couldn't resist the urge to play the trickster, swooping down to snatch a piece of cake from a startled Hobbit-lad, letting out a raucous caw as he flew off.
Only as the sun began to set, and the chimneys of Hobbiton began to puff with the smoke of evening meals, did Keith reluctantly turn back toward the mountains.
At that same hour, far to the east in the Great Greenwood, the shadows were deepening into something foul.
Radagast the Brown, the wizard of the woods, looked upon his domain with a heavy heart. The forest was sick. The leaves were turning black, and the small, furry creatures he called friends were falling cold and lifeless upon the moss.
"What is this blight?" Radagast whispered, his voice trembling with worry.
He found a hedgehog, little Sebastian, clinging to the edge of life. He rushed the creature back to his hovel, trying every spell of healing he knew. But the old charms failed.
Upon closer inspection, he felt the cold, oily residue of the void. "Darkness!" he gasped, his head snapping toward the direction of Dol Guldur.
Suddenly, a massive shadow skittered across the outside of his hut. A spider, gargantuan and unnatural, moved through the trees. Radagast had lived in these woods for an age; no such beast belonged here.
He knew the answer. He knew where the poison was leaking from. The moment Sebastian breathed again, the Brown Wizard scrambled into his sled pulled by a team of giant Rhosgobel rabbits, racing headlong toward the fortress of the Necromancer.
Near the borders of Rivendell, the Company reached a set of ruins at the foot of a mountain. It was an abandoned village, a place of stone ghosts.
"We camp here!" Thorin commanded. He cast a sharp, resentful glance at Gandalf.
The Wizard ignored him, but Bilbo felt the sting of it. The atmosphere was stifling. Though Gandalf and Bilbo had caught up to the Dwarves the day before, Thorin had not uttered a single word to them. He treated them as ghosts, a wall of cold silence that made Bilbo question every decision that had led him out of his front door.
Was I truly meant for this? Bilbo wondered. To die in a ruin for a Dwarf who hates me? I don't care for gold. I just want my armchair.
"We should continue," Gandalf said, breaking the silence. "The light is fading, and this place feels ill-at-ease."
"Do I look as though I care for your 'feelings', Wizard?" Thorin spat.
Balin sighed, rubbing his temples. He knew Thorin's temper, but he also valued Gandalf's foresight. "Gandalf, why do you urge us on? We are all weary."
"There is a reason this village is a ruin," Gandalf replied gravely. "The night here is not safe. If we move for another half-day, we can reach a place of true sanctuary. A place where we can rest properly."
Balin's eyes brightened. "Where?"
Gandalf glanced at Thorin, knowing the explosion was imminent. "Rivendell."
The word hit the air like a spark in a powder keg.
"You would have us crawl to the Elves for aid?" Thorin roared. "I would sooner rot in these ruins! I will not go near that place, nor will I accept a single crumb from their table!"
Gandalf didn't argue. He had reached the end of his patience. "I need to clear my head," he said coldly. He turned his back on the Company and walked into the darkness of the ruins.